


Never the Same Mistake

by IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: But not exactly, Idiots in Love, Instead it is an Accidental Fake Secret Marriage, M/M, M/M/M, Magical Theory, Multi, Pining, Secret Marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:00:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29069208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis/pseuds/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis
Summary: Albus and Gellert? Stubbornly irreconcilable.Theseus and Albus? Awkward, painful, and in at least three kinds of denial.Gellert and Theseus? Even Gellert knew the idea was delusional.But Gellert, Theseus, and Albus all together?In an explosion of spellfire, Magic found the best possible outcome.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald/Theseus Scamander, Albus Dumbledore/Theseus Scamander, Gellert Grindelwald/Theseus Scamander
Comments: 27
Kudos: 11





	1. Albus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carapheonix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carapheonix/gifts).



> This was inspired by a prompt from [Carapheonix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carapheonix/pseuds/Carapheonix) – ‘Theseus and Albus are out chasing Gellert and a spell combination leaves them in St. Mungo’s, mistakenly believing they are all three married to one another. Gellert, who was dragged away by his followers, is free – but under the same misapprehension.’  
> In short – she had the genius idea of mashing up three popular tropes and coming up with a new creation that I could not resist taking a crack at: accidental fake secret marriage!  
> Also per Carapheonix’s request – please do feel free to imagine Gideon Emery in the role of Theseus. We certainly will be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that this takes place in 1920, 6 ½ years before the events of Fantastic Beasts. So, this is not canon-compliant, in that what happens _here_ will break the possibility of getting _there._

9 March 1920

Albus opened the door to Newt’s basement. What sort of ventilation charms must Newt have installed? It was extraordinary: Albus knew that the basement was full of animals, but it smelled no different from an ordinary root cellar – from up here, at least.

Was there anyone down there? Albus heard nothing but the faint sound of the traffic outside and of his own heart beating too loudly in his ears until – the faraway echo of an angry shout, and some murmuring sounds after. There were at least two people in the basement, but Albus couldn’t make out what they were saying.

He moved silently down the steps to the first landing and stopped to listen again.

“… hurts! You’re being rougher than necessary _on purpose!_ ”

Theseus! He was safe, thank Merlin. Albus felt as if he were finally remembering how to breathe.

“You didn’t have to come to me. In fact –“

“Newt?” Albus called out in warning, springing down the stairs.

The voices hushed. Newt appeared just before Albus reached the bottom step. He looked up at Albus sternly. “You can’t just come into my house – come into my _basement_ – whenever you like, Dumbledore! There are creatures down here which don’t react well to strangers –“

“Oh, I’m not a stranger, Newt,” Albus said with a broad smile. “And it was an emergency. Besides – the door was open.”

“It was not!” Newt protested.

Albus pushed past Newt, not quite apologizing as they clipped shoulders, “I was concerned.”

He rounded towards the area where Newt prepared the food for his creatures. Sure enough, Theseus was seated at a stool at the table. The man’s back was to him, and his shirt was off. A rope of new pink scar tissue, shiny with healing salve, was running from the scapula on one side of his back, diagonally down to the other side, finally disappearing around his waist. How far around did it extend? He could have been killed!

“I – “

Theseus turned at the sound of Albus’ voice. The scar did not cross Theseus' abdomen as much as halfway, stopping just short of the patch of hair around his navel. Albus traced the faint line of hair down to where it disappeared into Theseus' trousers.

What was he doing? His eyes snapped up and met Theseus'. The younger Wizard didn't have to take his shirt off to make it impossible for Albus to speak (though it wasn't helping - what Wizard had muscle definition like that?) Those unwavering grey-blue eyes alone had always been enough to shut off Albus' ability to think clearly, at least for a moment.

Albus hastened to defend himself: "Your scar... it's..."

Albus remembered when those eyes would have lit up to see him. But that was more than a decade ago. Now, Theseus looked… unimpressed.

Albus tried again. “I heard that there was a skirmish this morning at the Hammersmith power station, and – “

Theseus turned away as if Albus were not speaking to him. No, as if Albus were speaking, but beneath his notice. “You’re right, Newt,” Theseus said, “Your door _was_ locked.”

Theseus stood and turned back to the worktable. “But that’s no defence against a man like Albus Dumbledore, who has a bad habit of thinking that just because he _can_ do something, then he _should be allowed_.” He picked up his undershirt off the table and pulled it over his head. Albus watched the muscles in Theseus’ back ripple just before being hidden from view.

“He thinks there’s nothing to forgive, because they’re such _little_ trespasses: ignoring other people’s locks, for instance.” Theseus turned back towards Newt and Albus. The undershirt stretched tight against Theseus’ chest. Albus looked away for a moment, then, with an effort, turned his eyes back to Theseus’ face (‘eyes up, Dumbledore!') and found Theseus was looking right at him. “Interfering in Auror investigations, that sort of thing.”

“You were hurt,” Albus said simply, unable to muster more than this simple observation.

“Yes,” Theseus acknowledged, grabbing his shirt off of Newt’s workbench and throwing it on. “Not that it is any of your business. Newt has taken care of it for me. I’ll be fine.”

Fine?! A wound of that kind was _fine?_ What was to stop something like this happening again? And what did Theseus mean ‘not his business’?

“‘Auror investigation,’ Theseus? Tell me, how did the _other_ Aurors fare?” Albus growled, becoming angry now that he knew that Theseus was ok. If he had been killed, it would have been needless, completely avoidable.

“I’ll just – feed the graphorns, then,” Newt said quietly, grabbing as many buckets as he could hold off of the work table. “And a few other…” he trailed off and walked away. That was unusual. Albus had expected Newt to scold one or both of them some more – he wasn’t ordinarily one to hold back his opinions. Perhaps he thought that Albus and Theseus were scolding one another just fine without his help.

“Albus – “

“Oh, that’s right. There _weren’t_ any other Aurors.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that –“

“You can’t very well call it an ‘Auror investigation’ if you don’t share whatever information you have with the Auror’s office! You simply went _on your own_ to confront Grindelwald _and an unknown number of his co-conspirators!_ During an attack on an _electrical plant!_ Theseus! You can’t simply – go off on your own like this!”

“Grindelwald never showed. It was only –“

“But you didn’t know that, when you apparated there! You went _thinking he would be there._ ”

“Fucking Krall.”

“Yes, Krall. And that, if you were wondering, is _what makes it my business._ Who do you think pointed Krall in your direction in the first place, Theseus?” If Theseus had been killed, it would have been because of intelligence Krall had shared – intelligence that _Albus had told Krall to share with him._

“What are you doing collecting informants, Albus? Krall is not a civilian-grade contact.”

“Krall was a student of mine –“

“Don’t give me that. Krall went to Durmstrang.”

“ – at the Hungarian Auror’s Academy. I taught a seminar there every summer for three years, under another –“

“The Hungarian Auror’s Academy?” Theseus asked, sceptically.

“I… had reason to learn Hungarian in my youth. And German. The instruction at the Auror Academy is -”

Albus stopped. How was it that Theseus had turned the tables on him? How was it that _Albus_ was the one being interrogated? _Theseus_ was the one whose behavior was in question, here. “None of that is important, Theseus. The important thing here is –“

“That you have been spying on me.”

Infuriating! “No, I have not. Krall had shared nothing with me of your actions, before now,” or – at least nothing that was so concerning as to be _actionable_ , “but he felt responsible this time. He had given you information, and he feared you were going to get yourself killed. So – I went, and – it was too late. You had gone already. I cleaned up the spell damage on the boilers – “

“I _was_ going to go back –“

Lovely. Now the boy was defensive. Always having to tiptoe around his insecurities…

“It was for appearances _only._ There was nothing that would have caused a critical failure immediately – you did a good job, Theseus. There could have been an explosion, or a fire, or –“ or Theseus could have been killed. But he hadn’t been. Albus took a deep breath to calm himself. “Not a single Muggle was harmed or even alerted. You did well.”

It was at this point that Albus noticed that Theseus _still_ had not buttoned his shirt. No, it wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed at all before now. Instead, it had only now become _all_ that he noticed – his next thoughts completely erased by the realization that it would be quicker to get Theseus’ shirt off of him than for him to put it to rights.

“Not that I was looking for your approval,” Theseus answered. As if Albus’ attention had woken him up to his own semi-dressed state, Theseus started buttoning his shirt. Albus’ eyes lingered on Theseus’ fingertips, manipulating the buttons. Why was watching a man dress as provocative as watching him _un_ dress?

Albus turned away and pretended to be interested in a large tank containing some grindylows. He tried to steady his breathing. He had been berating Theseus for his recklessness? What if Theseus had noticed Albus watching him? Albus sighed. He wouldn't have. Theseus didn't really see Albus anymore. But what if he did? What if Theseus noticed Albus looking, and invited Albus back to his house? What if Theseus put those fingers to work on _Albus'_ buttons? Would Theseus offer him a drink first? Or simply throw Albus up against the wall, and -

Theseus cleared his throat, and Albus turned. Theseus fully dressed was not, as it turned out, any less distracting. Albus should have actually been looking at the grindylows, instead of fantasizing about his ex-student. Now he was completely unable to speak. He might never be able to speak a word to him again. Albus was still stuck in that moment of seeing Theseus’ back, bare to his gaze, of him turning, revealing his bare chest, his abdomen, that trail of hair...

‘Pathetic, Dumbledore,’ he scolded himself, ‘You’re as bad as a fourth year, swooning over having seen a boy with his shirt off. Now open your mouth and say an intelligible word like a man who actually _speaks for a living_. It is not as if you have not seen your fair share of naked men. For Merlin’s sake.’

“Theseus,” Albus’ voice broke a bit on his name, and the younger Wizard’s eyes widened for a moment. Albus cleared his throat, as if _that_ had been the problem. “Call me next time.”

“Albus, you have no jurisdiction –“

“Which is exactly what you want, if you are insisting on not taking this to your superiors.”

Theseus tilted his head up towards the distant ceiling and groaned, “Albus bloody Dumbledore.” Just to add to the growing bank of images Albus did not need.

Theseus looked down at his shoes and then met Albus’ eyes. “There’s – I think there’s a mole. If I share my intelligence with the department, then Krall will be found out, and become no good to me. So, it isn’t that I’m being _reckless_ , Albus. I’m being cautious with the resource _you_ shared with me.”

“You were lucky this time, Theseus, but don’t count on getting away with something like this again. Grindelwald prides himself on never making the same mistake twice. Take me with you next time. It will not slow you down to send me a Patronus.”

“A Patronus?” Theseus asked, confused. “Sure, I can make a Patronus.” Albus had been the one to teach him. Theseus had been so delighted with himself and Albus both when he finally managed a corporeal Patronus that the memory of that moment was what Albus thought of when he cast his own. “But how _that_ is relevant…”

Oh, of course. It _was_ a rather uncommon application of the spell, and not part of the British Auror Academy repertoire. But Albus had seen an Auror use it at MACUSA, and had assumed…

“You can – ah – use it to send messages. Like an owl, but nearly instantaneous. It travels as quickly as a beam of light. And – it speaks. The message. In the voice of the sender, which, together with not having control over which animal you conjure is a kind of authentication of the message. The usual variant speaks the moment it reaches the person for whom the message is intended, but that is impractical. It can result in a message being shared at an inopportune time. But I’ve designed a modification that ensures that the message is received in a timely _and discrete_ manner –“

Theseus looked at Albus, stunned. “You can send a message with a Patronus? That’s dead useful. Why didn’t you teach us this at Hogwarts?”

“I just _said_ , Theseus. The basic variant on the spell causes the Patronus to blurt out a message no matter where the recipient is, no matter what they are doing, no matter whom they are with! Can you imagine? It could give away your location in a duel. It could reveal privileged information to someone not meant to have it. It could – simply be used to harass and embarrass another person.”

“I _was_ listening, Albus,” Theseus said, matching Albus’ tone of annoyance so perfectly that it could only be mockery. He picked his wand up off the table and twirled it in his fingers. “You also said that you had _modified_ it?“

That was fair. There had been no need for Albus to be quite so defensive. It was only that he had been annoyed with _himself_ for not thinking of sharing the spell with Theseus before now. But he didn’t want Theseus to think that he had been keeping the spell from him _on purpose_ , either.

“I only worked out this other way a couple of years ago.”

‘After you left,’ Albus didn’t add, though the implication was obvious. ‘After the War had already started,’ would have been equally true. ‘I never kept my magic from you,’ would have been still more dangerous to say.

“But I still don’t teach it at Hogwarts. It takes a bit of practice, and natural talent – it’s… frustrating for some people.” A lot of people. Albus had only successfully taught it twice, and had become even more careful about whom he shared it with as a result. “But you’d pick it up right away, I’m sure of it. I’ll teach it to you. But in return, you have to promise me that you won’t face Grindelwald – or his followers – on your own.”

Theseus placed his wand in his holster. “I’m not a child anymore, for you to bribe, Albus.”

“No, you’re a man, for me to negotiate with.”

“You’ll teach me the spell because you want me to have it. Because if I have it, I’ll be able to reach you _if_ I need your help.”

Well, he _had_ said that he wanted Theseus to negotiate like a man. Theseus was right – he didn’t have to promise Albus anything, because ultimately Albus was the one who wanted him to have the spell. He had worried about Theseus for years, especially after he left for the War. But when Theseus returned, Albus had had almost as much reason to worry before. Joining the Auror Corps’ organized crime and insurgency division? Theseus could have done worse only by becoming a Hit Wizard. The spell would make him safer. _If_ he bothered to use it. Which he wouldn’t, because he was never again going to admit that he needed Albus for _anything_. But maybe at least he would use it to call someone else.

“I don’t think I like you very much, Theseus Scamander,” Albus said to him, feigning a disappointed expression.

Theseus smirked. “The feeling is mutual, Dumbledore.” He slapped Albus on the shoulder as he walked by.

Albus turned his head and called out after him, “Thursday night?”

“The Dartmoor Training Centre, eight o’clock,” Theseus answered, without looking back.

They hadn’t gone so far as to _make plans_ to see one another in twelve years. This was – something hopeful. An opportunity to regain some lost ground. Maybe.

Albus sat on the stool Theseus had vacated and waited for Newt to return. He did not have to wait long. The young man appeared the moment the sound of his brother's footsteps had faded. He must have been hiding, waiting for Theseus to leave.

“There’s time enough for me to teach _you_ the spell, now,” Albus invited.

“Oh, I’m no Theseus,” Newt demurred, though there was a hint of resentment in his voice. So, he _had_ been listening.

“No,” Albus agreed. “No, you’re not. You’re more patient than he is. And a great deal less reckless. But your brother is fighting against people who at least respect Wizardkind. The people you are setting yourself against care for _nothing_ – far more dangerous. You could benefit from the spell, and you’re certainly Wizard enough to master it quickly. The charm work on this basement, Newt - it's extraordinary. Truly.”

Newt didn’t answer, instead saying, “My brother can be a little dense, Professor. He’s not going to know if you don’t tell him.”

Albus gave Newt a quizzical look.

“Yes, why not pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Newt turned towards the work table. “I’ll have time for your lesson when I’m done feeding the animals – I won’t be fifteen minutes.” He picked up a knife and began preparing vegetables and throwing them into a bucket. “I’ll see you upstairs.”

Albus, dismissed, climbed the stairs to the kitchen, and thought about what Newt had said. _Of course_ , Theseus wasn’t going to know how Albus felt if he didn’t tell him. That was the _whole point_ of not telling him.


	2. Gellert

12 March 1920

They’d been careful. No showy spellwork, no attracting Muggle notice. They had briefly kidnapped a Muggle worker at the plant, in order to learn enough for Selwyn to impersonate him to gather intelligence – and to establish the best place for them to apparate into unseen. But they had quickly obliviated and returned the Muggle, so as not to arouse suspicion. No, there was only one way that that lone Wizard had caught them out – one of Gellert’s own inner circle had cracked.

Gellert had to know who this Wizard was, and how he had found them – and he couldn’t enlist the help of anyone who had been part of planning the failed action in Hammersmith. Once again, he cursed his Seer abilities as useless – he never Saw anything actionable, personal – only wars and plagues and other disasters. Enough to horrify, but not enough to guide his decisions.

He had had to ask Grimmson – whose loyalty he did not own, and whose only motivations were money and reputation. But as distasteful as he found the man, at least he knew he would not betray Gellert as long as the pay was high enough, and with Grimmson’s contacts at the Ministry, he would likely be able to find the answers Gellert wanted.

The moment they were alone with the door closed behind them, Grimmson told Gellert, “No one at the Ministry knows anything about an action at the Hammersmith power station.”

“That is not a promising start, Grimmson.” So, it was not a sanctioned action. It might be an Auror acting alone, but it could just as easily be someone not an Auror. Many of the best duellists never joined law enforcement. Was he an independent wand for hire? _Who was he?_

“Or, perhaps it is good news that the Ministry does not yet know that you are in Britain.”

Perhaps Gellert should not have begun with assuming Ministry involvement. He should have begun with the question of which of his people was either sloppy enough or disloyal enough to betray him, and then think through who they would know in Britain…

“ _Someone_ knows I am here,” Gellert answered, “and they are brash enough to stand alone against four talented Wizards, and smart enough to prevent them from achieving their objective.”

Gellert became convinced suddenly that Albus was involved in this somehow. It would be just like Albus to start his own movement, collect his own Wizards simply for the purpose of opposing Gellert. Without ever having bothered to speak to Gellert about it! To have listened to his side! Albus couldn’t act against Gellert _directly_ , but that did not rule out…

No. Gellert could not let himself be distracted. Albus was irrelevant. Even if Albus _did_ know that Gellert was in the country, he would not have known, would not be sending proxy Wizards against him ( _which he might not be doing -_ this Wizard might have _nothing_ to do with Albus), if it were not for the fact that _one of his own people betrayed him._

Gellert should have gone with them. He would not make that mistake again. If he had been there, this mystery Wizard would not have stopped them, and they would have shut down several factories and sent the city into a panic.

“Theseus Scamander.”

“Ah – not a mystery, after all. Good. And how do _you_ know this, if no one at the Ministry knows?”

“Theseus Scamander is a young Auror, war hero, reckless type. He was the only skilled Auror or Hit Wizard absent from work on the ninth. And he did not go out drinking with his fellow Aurors after work on the following day, breaking his usual custom. He said that he could not consume alcohol, because he was taking healing potions for a laceration that he had received from one of his brother’s pets.”

This did sound promising, but if Scamander was the Wizard Gellert was looking for, then Rosier would say that Grimmson was wrong to call him reckless. ‘He takes risks, but with a singular focus. He might value his own life differently than most would, but that does not mean that he is not calculating.’ That he was still taking healing potions the next day seemed to indicate that MacDuff had not exaggerated the hit that he’d landed on the Wizard. But with that injury, this Scamander had bought himself victory over four others – and he had lived to use his knowledge of their methods against them on another day.

“And he meets the physical description?”

Grimmson handed over a photo. Theseus Scamander had an appealing intensity – too grim for his age, but Gellert liked that. Liked it too much. Liked it almost as much as he liked his cheekbones and his jawline. Anyone so sure to be unwilling to have anything to do with Gellert had no right being this alluring. He would regret it, a little, having to kill such a handsome and skilled fighter.

“Five foot ten, short auburn hair, thirty-one years old,” Grimmson answered. “He’s your Wizard.”

A calculating and powerful Wizard, attractive, intense, with red hair and blue eyes – Gellert didn’t need another Wizard who fit that description. He was even _taller_ than Gellert - though admittedly not _much_ taller - not tall like Albus was.

The comparisons wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't necessary to add the qualifier that neither of them would ever give Gellert a hearing, much less blow him. And... now he was visualising Theseus kneeling on the floor in front of him, Gellert's cock disappearing into his mouth. Grand.

At least Gellert didn’t know what this one felt like pinned beneath him. He could imagine, though. He remembered Rosier’s characterization of the Wizard’s fighting style: a challenge to fight – innovative, using spells that most wouldn’t think of as duelling spells. ‘He fights like a man who doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, as long as he takes you with him.’ Fighting side by side with a man like that – and then taking him to bed, full of leftover battle energy and exhilarated by the sheer unlikelihood of still being alive?

Obviously, it had been too long since Gellert had fucked a man. Everyone was boring, disappointing. Theseus Scamander seemed like a man who could hold his interest – someone he would not be embarrassed to admit to later. But that did not mean that he was attainable. Gellert needed to clear his mind. Focus. He could not have his libido driving this conversation.

“What else do you know?”

“He made a name for himself in the War. Everyone seems to know that he’s a ‘war hero’ – he was given an Order of Merlin – but no one wants to talk about what he did _exactly_.”

 _Someone_ would talk. It was just a matter of finding the right person, and applying the right pressure.

“The War has been over more than a year, now. What has he been doing since then?”

“He joined the Auror Corps, organized crime division. Two months ago, he was promoted to head that division, which he renamed ‘organized crime and insurgency.’”

Gellert felt flattered. He couldn't think of any person or group of people currently in Britain besides himself and his own to whom the term 'insurgency' might apply. He had half of a division in the British Auror's department named after him. 'Thank you for the acknowledgement, Mr. Scamander,' Gellert thought to himself with a smile.

“And he’s only been there sixteen months? He shouldn’t even be out of training yet – unless he was an Auror _before_ the War as well.”

“Not sixteen months – fourteen. He started just after the New Year in 1919. It seems that he was an Auror before the War, but not here in Britain. He graduated from Hogwarts in 1907. Ten months into an intended two-year mastery in Defence Against the Dark Arts with Albus Dumbledore, he moved to America. There are too many stories about what he did there to believe any of them: bodyguard, hippogriff handler, professional duellist, amateur boxer, pianist in a bar… The only story I believe for certain is that he was an Auror with MACUSA – otherwise, there’s no reason for him to have been excused from training with the British Ministry’s Auror department.”

No matter Grimmson’s doubts, Gellert thought it was possible that _all_ of those accounts were true. (He rather hoped the part about him being a boxer was true - he liked a Wizard who knew how to get _physical_.) By the sound of it, Scamander had moved to America when he was nineteen – and while not all young men were restless, any young man who discontinued halfway through a mastery was someone who had realized that he did not know what he wanted to do with his life after all.

Unless.

Albus had left Britain to work for one Wizarding government or another every summer – something that he could not have done if he had had an apprentice. Traditionally, if one’s master worked at a school, summers were the only time when an apprentice could have their master’s focused attention. Which meant that Scamander had been Albus’ _only apprentice_. What had happened? And why did Albus never take an apprentice after Theseus Scamander?

“Why didn’t he finish his Mastery?”

“Couldn’t stand the moralistic show-offy bastard he was appre-“

Grimmson's words cut off suddenly. Gellert noticed that his hand was around Grimmson’s throat. Interesting reflex. He squeezed a bit harder before letting go.

“That was a guess? Or someone said this to you?”

Grimmson smiled as if Gellert had not just threatened his life. “Guess. Haven’t asked anyone. Didn’t know it would be important to you.”

No. And Gellert couldn’t have him knowing it was important, either. He casually waved the Elder Wand, casting a wordless Obliviate, wiping Grimmson’s memory of everything that followed his reveal of Theseus’ title at the DMLE.

“Theseus Scamander. Good. You have a home address for him?”

“Yeah, you want me to pick him up?”

Gellert waved his hand. “We’re not ready to declare open war on the Ministry yet. I’ll have Krall keep an eye on him. Come back next week. Perhaps I’ll have someone for you to – retrieve – for me then.”

Gellert didn't mention the money that would be transferred to Grimmson's account at Gringotts within the hour. Grimmson had learned not to mention it either. Gellert always compensated him at more than double his usual rates - but only if Grimmson did not ask. They kept up the polite illusion that Grimmson was one of Gellert's people.

Grimmson jotted down the address on the back of the photo and left, leaving Gellert to think about what he had learned.

Albus had never taken an apprentice after Scamander. Why not? There must be dozens of students eager to work with him every year. Albus was annoyingly well respected, widely published, charismatic, a patient teacher. Why had the younger man left less than halfway through his mastery? He had become an Auror – it was not that he had lost interest in the subject. Something had happened, and Gellert did not want to imagine what it had been –

But he could not stop himself from imagining it: Albus, 26, having grown into his frame, no longer quite so lanky as when Gellert had known him, and his 18 year old student - eager, perhaps a bit inexperienced. Albus would have wanted him, Gellert had no doubt. He and Albus had a similar type, after all: striking, arrogant, and able to keep up – nothing was more exciting than someone who understood what you were saying the first time - even better if they had something new to add. And Albus had _plenty_ that he could teach a young man. He had taught Gellert more than a few things.

_('So_ that's _why they called you 'Head Boy,' Gellert remembered teasing Albus, in a desperate attempt not to reveal just how dazed he was at having come in someone's mouth for the first time.)_

Would they have shared a bed, as Gellert and Albus had sometimes? Or would Albus have simply laid Theseus out on his desk, run his hands over his body, teaching Theseus his every sensitive spot - even a few that he had not yet found on his own? Would Albus have taken his hair down for Theseus?

_('Leave it down,' Gellert told Albus, but he hadn't said why. Hadn't told Albus that it made him feel safe when Albus laid on top of him, his hair like a curtain all around - that it felt as if Albus were hiding him from the world, as if none of the visions Gellert had had could ever come to pass, because there were no bombs, no poison gases, no epidemics, no earthquakes, no Muggles - no Wizards, even, aside from the two of them.)_

Almost without realizing that he had pulled his cock out of his trousers, Gellert had come in his hand, remembering himself and Albus, imagining Albus and Theseus. They would have been beautiful together, Albus and Scamander, of that much Gellert was sure.

But freed from his lust enough to think clearly again, Gellert realized - Albus was not the type to be involved with one of his students. He was too cautious, too _responsible_. Always choosing whatever would most subvert his own desires; never giving into _what he wanted_. No matter how much that hurt everyone else. No, it seemed likely that the problem had been that Theseus Scamander had wanted more from Albus than Albus would allow either of them to have. Young Theseus had left Hogwarts because he felt _unwanted_. And no matter what Albus’ secret feelings might be, Theseus had not been wrong – Albus had not wanted him _enough_. Had not wanted him _as much as he deserved._

If Gellert was right, then he had more than a little in common with Theseus Scamander. And unlike Albus, Gellert was not one to deny himself the things that he wanted out of misplaced scrupulosity. Right now, what Gellert wanted was Theseus, and he would examine every possibility, make every effort to make him his own. Of course, it was far more likely that the Auror would remain determined to stand against Gellert. That would be a shame - a true waste of a gorgeous and a powerful Wizard. Because if Theseus Scamander could not be persuaded to join Gellert, then he was too dangerous to be allowed to live.


	3. Theseus

10 April 1920

“Albus!” Theseus said, surprised. Albus had never shown up to Theseus’ house unannounced. In fact, he had never shown up there _at all_. Not that it was odd for Albus to know where Theseus lived – that infuriating Wizard made it his business to know everything. But he had only reached out to Theseus once since they had practiced the Patronus modification together – and Theseus had declined, saying that he didn’t have time for a visit.

“Why are you here?”

“Are you not going to let me in?” Albus asked, raising one eyebrow. Albus never raised a single eyebrow like that. Well, no – Theseus had seen him do it once, when Albus was doing an impression of Headmaster Black.

Either Albus was in serious trouble, or this was not Albus at all.

“When last we met, at my brother’s house –“

“When last we met,” Albus said in a low voice, “It was on a street corner three blocks away. You brought me back here and I told you about a party a friend of mine was having? West of the City?”

Krall. Polyjuiced as Albus, this time. Interesting choice.

“Of course, that’s right, Albus,” Theseus said, his voice only just loud enough to be heard across the street . “I’m sorry, come in. Can’t be too careful in my line of work, you know.”

Theseus stood aside and allowed the man to enter. When the door closed behind them, Theseus remarked, “I liked the brunette. She was a good kisser. A bit tall for my taste, though.”

“You like your women shorter than 5’2”? I have been taller than that on several occasions, and you picked me up without complaint.”

This was Krall, all right.

“No, true. The tall redhead was especially attractive, actually.” Which he had said without thinking, before registering that he was talking to an especially attractive and tall redhead right now. Which… did not bear thinking about. Pretending he had brought up that particular woman for the purpose of setting up a joke, Theseus asked, “Going to kiss me again tonight?” Knowing that it was a safe question to ask, that the answer was going to be something like:

“I would not have kissed you at any time, Scamander, if I were not selling a story. I don’t expect anyone is watching us in here?”

“No, and I suppose there’s no reason for me to be kissing _Albus_ , even if there were.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Krall answered, which annoyed Theseus, for some reason. “In any case, I’m a married man, so you will _not_ be getting a repeat performance that I cannot justify.”

Theseus felt a twinge of jealousy at Albus saying the words, ‘I’m a married man.’ He had to remind himself that this was Krall, _not Albus_.

Not that it mattered. Why should _he_ care if Albus were married?

“Fair enough,” Theseus answered with a forced laugh. “So, why Albus, tonight?”

“I am meant to be watching your residence now, and Albus was the only person I trusted to play the role of myself, in case Grindelwald has someone trailing me, as insurance.”

Still, he needn’t have done a straight switch. Presumably Krall was as careful not to be seen in Albus’ presence as he was not to be seen in Theseus’ presence. So Albus could have been Krall, and Krall could have been a prostitute as usual, just as easily.

But that could wait. He was more troubled that he had not noticed Krall spying on him. He had thought that he had taken sufficient precautions, but clearly not. He was annoyed with himself.

“Watching for how long?”

“It’s been three weeks now, but intermittent, and always Polyjuiced as someone different.”

“Wait – stop. So – Albus Polyjuiced as you, and then took a _second_ dose as _someone else?_ When the first dose was still active? That is – not safe with most formulations.”

Krall-not-Albus smiled. “Your solicitude is noted and appreciated. But Albus had a special variation –“

“Of course, he did,” Theseus sighed, rolling his eyes. Albus was a like a secret society of one. “So, you’ve been able to tell Grindelwald – “

“Almost nothing. I’ve not been consistent, frequent, or close. I was instructed to err on the side of not rousing suspicion, rather than on the side of gathering intel. I’ve told him who comes in and out of your house from the front door – or I would have done, but there has been no one. Are you – is everything all right?”

Since coming back from the War, Theseus had been bringing Muggle prostitutes home once or twice a week – something that Krall had cottoned on to right away. Meeting men in Trafalgar Square, more rarely, though it seemed Krall had _not_ picked up on that habit. But it was true - there had been no one in the past three weeks. In five weeks. Sex just – hadn’t been providing the right kind of distraction, anymore.

Theseus looked into those concerned blue eyes and blushed. Shit. No. Five _months_. Five months ago, he had been seated next to Albus at a dinner party of his mother’s. He had gone home enraged at the man’s meddling, picked up a girl, and… the usual slate cleaning had not taken place. It had been similarly useless the next however many times. It had just taken his brain a while to catch on to the message his body was sending – anonymous sex was no longer his drug of choice. Reviewing the past five months, Theseus had to admit that the woman he was bringing home had been Krall at least as often as she had been an actual woman.

This... was another thing better not thought about. Theseus waved off Krall’s inquiry. “You’ve only been here intermittently – you said so yourself. I’m fine. Everyone uses the floo anyway.”

Krall raised an eyebrow – which, again, looked unnatural on Albus’ face.

“Yes, fine. Not Muggles, obviously. But this is good news, anyway. You've had no reason to tell him about my... female visitors – which means that he’s unlikely to consider trying to lure me with one. What _do_ I need to worry about?”

“He knows that you take the Muggle paper. I can only assume that you also take _The Daily Prophet_ , but I've seen no owl traffic on this block at all - you must be using some sort of geographically anchored disillusionment charm on owls which - I imagine you could justify to anyone who noticed as a Statute of Secrecy precaution, given that you live in a Muggle area."

That was, in fact, _exactly_ what Theseus had done. "You've shared this speculation with Grindelwald?"

"I have. He asked about owls specifically. Otherwise... I’ve only been able to tell him the usual times the lights are extinguished upstairs and downstairs. But magically speaking, your house is locked up tight – there’s no way I could know what is going on in here without attracting your attention. Grindelwald might be able to do it, if he were persistent enough, but maybe not. The wards you have layered – I wasn’t sure I could even _catalogue_ all of them without setting off an alarm of some sort.”

Theseus was satisfied. In his opinion, if he made it impossible to even _see_ his house from a distance, that would make him _more_ interesting. He had few visitors, he already checked his paper for malicious spells before picking it up off the front step, and he had a habit of adjusting the lighting in ways not always related to his activities in the house, so that was not as revealing as may be.

“Noted.”

“Grindelwald would have taken interest in you eventually, anyway, given your position in the DMLE. But the dustup at Hammersmith – you fought off four Wix, and one of them was Rosier. Surely you knew that was going to get some attention.”

Theseus was _not_ going to feel guilty about that. There had not been enough time to concoct a subtle defence – the only choices had been to openly fight or to just let it go – allow Grindelwald’s people to sabotage the plant, perhaps even destroy it. If the boilers had blown, how many people would have died in the initial blasts? How far might the fire have spread? But even if Grindelwald’s people had only managed to take the power plant offline, it would have cut the electricity not only to hundreds of homes, but to several factories, and what might the consequences of that have been? No, he had had no choice.

“So – he’s just wanting me watched, for now? He’s not sent anyone after me yet?” Fuck. What if Grindelwald decided to go after Newt instead? “Or after – anyone else?”

“As far as I know? No. And it is not clear why, except only – when we arrived six months ago, he said that he was not keen to draw attention to his presence in London ‘too early.’ So, it’s possible that he is biding his time because an Auror dying or going missing – particularly the head of a division – would be investigated.”

“An explosion at the power station would have led to an investigation.”

“No, without interference, Hammersmith would have looked like a typical industrial accident. More evidence that Muggle technology continues to be dangerous and unreliable. It wasn’t a public declaration – it was a dress rehearsal. Or perhaps part of a larger plan. But being caught – _that_ should have drawn attention. I can’t say for certain, because he has told me nothing about my assignment here, but I imagine that it intrigues him that it is _still_ unknown that he is in England, in spite of the fact that a high-ranking Auror fought several of his people - including Rosier, who is known to be one of his associates.”

“But this is speculation? He’s not said anything about why he is interested in me? Just – ordered you to watch me?”

“I did ask why you were important, but he only answered, ‘All will be revealed in time.’ Then he asked, ‘you do still _trust_ me, don’t you, Krall?’ which was, frankly, terrifying. _He_ doesn’t trust _any_ of us, doesn’t tell any of us his plans anymore. We never know what we are going to do until minutes before we are sent out to do it. He has us watching each other. There have been days when, instead of watching you, he has asked me to trail Selwyn, for instance. Or Carrow. He wants us all to know that he’s lost faith in us.”

That did sound ominous, but Theseus had to believe that it would blow over. That level of suspicion was unsustainable. Grindelwald would alienate his own people, wouldn’t he? Or was he that ruthless that they felt trapped, like their only choices were to live under constant scrutiny or to leave and be hunted down? Or did they worship Grindelwald so slavishly that they did not care what he knew about them, convinced that they had nothing to hide?

“You have not been involved in any actions, then? Surveillance only? Have there even _been_ any actions? It has been difficult to tell.”

“I cannot be sure myself – as you surmised, I’m only on surveillance, and Grindelwald no longer shares what he has the others doing. And he has not had me watch anyone when they were doing something interesting. The only possible news I have about his plans is that Grindelwald may be preparing for a major action against the Bank of England. He has me assessing the pressure points on various managers and officials.”

“Found any?”

“Everyone has them.”

Theseus grunted his assent. That was true, in his experience. Several pressure points, some more reliable than others. And usually they were not difficult to discover. Breaking a man was easy. Choosing _whom_ to break, and what to do with them once you had was where error crept in.

“Know what he is planning to do there?”

“What would _anyone_ do there? Destabilize the currency, somehow, I suppose. But given his current paranoia, it is equally likely that he has _no_ plans for the Bank of England, and only has me working that angle in order to see if the British Auror Corps decides ‘out of nowhere’ to take an interest in the institution.”

“So, to sum up: you would just as soon I forget about the Bank for now, surveillance has been your only beat in the past few weeks, and Grindelwald has been more secretive than ever. I am being watched, but it is unclear to what end.”

“That’s it. I’m sorry not to have more, but –“

“But Hammersmith, yeah, got it. I’m sorry, too, for what it cost you. I would have played that differently if I had had more time. You saved maybe hundreds of lives, Krall.”

“I like to think that they would have found a way to shut down the plant that would not have involved igniting the fuel. And I am not sure that coal is that unstable – even if it had all gone up at once… But we will never know for certain what might have happened.”

Theseus had been there, and given the spells they had been using, he was fairly certain that whether they meant to or not, the boilers would have blown apart, sending hot shrapnel in all directions, at the very least. But Krall was right, at least, that they would never know.

Theseus changed the subject to a topic that concerned him a great deal more than relitigating a completed mission. “So, I suppose, since you are ‘watching me’ this evening, and you do not know who is watching ‘you’ watch me, you are going to need to tell him that Albus Dumbledore came to see me.”

“I have to admit, I am curious to see if this will push Grindelwald in one direction or another. He has a bit of an obsession with our Professor Dumbledore.”

Theseus’ stomach muscles tightened involuntarily. _‘Our Professor Dumbledore.’_ There was something about Krall’s tone that made Theseus… need to take a deep breath and unclench his fist.

“And Albus _agreed_ to this plan?” Theseus asked.

“I would hardly involve him if he didn’t,” Krall answered.

And yet, he had involved Theseus unawares in this little experiment. Then again, Theseus was already involved – already being watched by Grindelwald. Albus, presumably, was not. And no one was _pretending_ to be Theseus, in this scenario.

Theseus’ throat began to thicken. This could have just as easily been accomplished by Albus _actually_ coming to see him. No one had to _pretend_ to be anybody. And in some ways, it would have been less complicated, safer.

Had Albus not wanted to come to Theseus’ house? And why not? It couldn’t be that it was too personal, too intimate – it wasn’t nearly as intimate to come to someone’s house as it was to let someone _inhabit your body_. Polyjuice. _That_ was intimate. Theseus couldn’t think of a single person he’d give leave to Polyjuice into him.

Was Albus that blasé about his body? Or was it that he trusted Krall _particularly?_ How close were the two of them, anyway? Apparently, they were seeing one another regularly enough for them to hatch this plan together! What else did they talk about?

“So, you haven’t had any intelligence to share, but you’ve been meeting with Albus _anyway?_ ”

“We do not meet only to exchange tactical information.”

“Then why _do_ you meet?”

Krall-not-Albus took on an unkind look.

“That’s between me and Albus, Scamander.”

Krall was right. Whatever he was to Albus was none of his business. Not that Theseus couldn’t find out if he wanted to. He could snap Krall like a twig. He didn’t know if he could make himself do it with Krall looking like Albus, as he was at the moment (and wasn’t _that_ clever of him?) But he could keep Krall bound until the Polyjuice wore off. Then he could begin with the fingers… Primates – so protective of their _hands…_

Theseus took a calming breath. Krall was an _informant._ An ally, of sorts. Theseus needed to pull himself together.

“Of course. I apologize.”

Krall _was_ an ally, and seemingly a decent man, and there were many other fine reasons not to destroy the man's fingers. But it struck Theseus suddenly that Krall was no longer an informant. ‘Grindelwald never makes the same mistake twice,’ Albus had said. He had perceived that he had made a mistake to trust… someone, and Krall was on that list of possible someones. This bridge had been burned.

“So, it is no longer an option to catch Grindelwald or his co-conspirators in action _before_ they’ve caused enough obvious damage for Aurors to get called in. It cannot be that my only other option is to wait for him either to move against me directly or flagrantly break the law… That leaves infiltration. It’s time for me to join.”

“He’s never going to believe that after –“

“I’m not suggesting that I knock on the front door of wherever it is that he is staying and offer myself up to enlist. Which would be – where, exactly?”

“Not a chance, Scamander,” Krall answered with a smirk. “Good try with the casual ask, but - Grindelwald will notice any unusual activity around Headquarters, and you don’t have sufficient grounds yet to issue an arrest, unless you want to confess to having faced Rosier and the rest _weeks ago_ and then having failed to report it. Which even then is grounds only to arrest the ones who were there - not Grindelwald. And since you just said that you are not planning to simply 'knock on his front door,' I’m not sure that that leaves a good reason for you to know where he sleeps at night.”

Theseus hated that Krall was right. If Theseus knew where Grindelwald could be found, he would let the information eat him up until he ended up acting on it, even knowing that it was not the best choice, strategically. He had to do this slowly.

“Have it your way,” Theseus said with a put-on condescending smile. “It makes no difference in the end. When the head of an Auror division begins making small talk about his frustrations with the Statute of Secrecy... There must be donors, supporters in Britain – people I could say the right words to at a party, and have it get back to Grindelwald that I might be ripe to be turned?”

“That could work,” Krall conceded. “At least – that could get you an audience with Grindelwald, after a month or two of preparation, if you were willing to be so patient. But it might mean letting any attacks slide in the interim.“

“Not necessarily. I know the two have been linked in the past decade, but it does seem possible to be against the Statute and still not be convinced for Grindelwald. To still be against terrorist actions against the Muggle populace.”

Krall sighed. “There was a time when ‘convinced for Grindelwald’ was _also_ not linked to ‘terrorist actions against the Muggle populace.’ Following him was not always – like this. The way he took advantage of the War came as quite a surprise to some of us. Or, to me at least. The violence was only rhetorical up until that point.”

Theseus stood outside of himself for a moment, as he always did when the War was mentioned. Krall brought this shift of Grindelwald’s up every time – this turn to justifying violence, this straining of old associations. It was – tiresome. Irrelevant.

They had been talking about something – practical. They should get back to that. Then Krall could leave, and Theseus could –

Could do what? It was when he felt like this – half outside of his body – that he used to pick up somebody. But now... He needed – what? The essential thing was probably not to be alone. To be somewhere safe. Somewhere – outside of his head. Good, ok. Newt’s? He always had something that needed doing for his animals.

Good. Yes. He had a plan. Back to work.

“Do you think that you can get me a list of his financial backers? Followers in influential families who think they have Grindelwald’s ear, but who would never get their hands dirty?”

Krall shook his head. “I can tell you whom I’ve seen in and around Headquarters, and people that I’ve seen elsewhere speaking with Grindelwald who, by their body language, I can assume feel friendly towards him. But names – names would be difficult.”

“If you were to sit down with me and look through, say forty, fifty photographs, you could tell me which people you recognized?”

“ _That_ I could do.” Krall sounded relieved to have something to contribute. Theseus released the last of the tension he had been holding. How did Krall always manage to rub him the wrong way?

Theseus went into a back room and came back carrying a stack of newspapers. He and Krall looked through the society pages together for about twenty minutes, coming up with a list of five possible targets.

“So,” Krall said, as he was standing to leave. “It seems that it _was_ important for me, and not Albus, to be the one to come see you tonight. I’ll tell him. He wanted to come himself, but I insisted on doing things this way. But this will be the last time you see me. It isn’t safe anymore.”

“Arguably, I’ve _never_ seen you, Krall.”

Krall laughed. “That is true. Theseus –“

Krall had never called him ‘Theseus.’ Only ‘Scamander.’ Theseus braced himself for some overstep – something that could only be said with a claim of familiarity.

“If you are determined to follow through with this plan of reaching out to Grindelwald, you should involve Albus. You need someone to confide in, plan with. Invite him to come visit you.”

The solicitousness with which Albus - no. No, not Albus, Krall - the patient pleading tone with which he said this, as if he were speaking to a child... It was insulting.

“It wouldn’t be fair to put a _civilian_ in harm’s way.”

Krall laughed. “You think that _Albus Dumbledore_ can be _kept out of harm’s way?_ Are you forgetting what I said about Grindelwald’s obsession with him?”

Theseus _had_ glossed over that, distracted by what he had taken to be a possessive tone in Krall’s voice. (Perhaps erroneously, he could admit now. Krall _did_ mention his wife every visit. And not in a way that seemed to be ‘protesting too much,’ either.) How had Albus come to _Grindelwald’s_ attention?

“And even if it were not so, Albus has a way of getting into trouble. Last summer, he was running drills with veteran Aurors and teaching a class on investigation at the Auror Academy in America – or that was what he was _meant_ to be doing. He ended up taking down a Muggleborn trafficking ring.”

Why hadn’t Graves mentioned that in one of his letters? Had Graves been with Theseus during that one argument he had had with Newt about Albus, during the War? Newt had been writing a letter to Albus, and Theseus had objected, and Newt had started enumerating all the ways that Albus had tried to help Newt during and following his expulsion. Which… Theseus had been absent for. Newt hadn’t said so, but he didn’t need to – they both knew how seldom Theseus had visited. He had actually shouted at Newt at one point, ‘I have heard _enough_ about Albus Dumbledore. I would just as soon not hear his name spoken _ever again!_ ’ It was embarrassing to remember.

But _Albus_ hadn’t told him he’d spent the summer in America, either – and ‘veteran Aurors’ would largely have been people that Theseus knew, had worked with. Albus would have known that.

Theseus tried to stem his frustration. _When_ would Albus have told him? They could go months without seeing one another – a truth made evident by the very fact that Albus had been out of the country for two months or more, and Theseus hadn’t even noticed. And perhaps Albus had wanted to tell him. Theseus had received several invitations to meet Albus one place or another – invitations he always politely refused. That night at Dartmoor Centre had been the first time Theseus had seen Albus on purpose since… since he was nineteen. In the interim, they had only run into one another by accident. Ended up at the same party, shared an elevator at the Ministry, that sort of thing.

‘If Albus had _truly_ wanted to see me, to tell me what he has been doing, he would have just shown up on his own, the way Krall did tonight. The way Albus showed up to Newt’s last month,’ he thought, peevishly.

But he hadn’t been there to see Newt. He had gone looking for _Theseus_. Albus _did_ ‘just show up’ – in an emergency. Which was more than Theseus had any right to expect, after all those years abroad when he had answered no more than one out of every five letters, when he had scrupulously avoided all mentions of when he would be back for a visit, so that Albus would be less likely to find a way to see him.

“Yes, fine. He’s a danger magnet, and he can more than handle himself. But he’s also a Hogwarts professor. He cannot be expected to simply come when I call. I’m not the only person who needs him.” Theseus didn’t like the way that sounded, so he corrected, “might have a use for him. Listen, everyone wants a piece of Albus Dumbledore. But he’s made his choice about how to spend his time, and I’m not going to interfere – ”

“ _Interfere?_ I am aware that he has, in fact _asked you_ to use him as backup.”

Theseus was annoyed. Did Krall and Albus get together just to talk about him?

“Albus is someone you know you can trust. He is experienced. And he cares about you.”

Theseus snorted. Yes, like one cared for a lost puppy. Pathos was _not_ what he was looking for from Albus Dumbledore.

“It is always better to have at least _one_ person watching your back, Theseus.”

Theseus sighed. It wasn't that he didn't know that. That had been the biggest loss in moving back to Britain: for almost a decade, Percival Graves had been the man Theseus had trusted to watch his back. And not just as an Auror. When the British Ministry had finally joined in the Great War, Graves had insisted on accompanying Theseus to Europe, even at the risk of running afoul of MACUSA, which had stubbornly maintained neutrality, even to the very end – even when the No-Maj American Congress had declared war. For his part, Theseus had vouched for Graves with the British Wizarding Forces and ensured that they would be assigned together. Over the years, they had saved one another’s lives enough times that the question of who was currently holding the life debt balance had become a running joke. But Graves had gone back to America and Theseus had decided to return home.

“Going against Grindelwald is not like going to war – his violence is _calculated_ when turned against his fellow Wizards – _focused_. If he kills you, it will _not be by accident_. If you choose to engage him, then engage him at your best, with your whole mind, all of your resources. I am simply asking that you _consider Albus a resource_.”

Theseus closed his eyes and thought it through. Krall was right. Theseus was only resisting because Krall was wearing Albus’ form. Saying no to Albus had started off years ago as self-preservation, but had become habitual. No, not merely habitual – it felt good to say no to Albus, empowering.

But this was not _Albus_ saying that _Theseus_ couldn’t manage this mission without him. Instead, this was _Krall_ who was saying that _no one_ , not _even_ Theseus, could manage this mission without at least one other person – and Krall was furthermore recognizing that the _only_ person suitable to help Theseus at this time was Albus.

‘Be reasonable, Theseus. Don’t cut off your wand arm to spite Dumbledore.’

“Yes, fine. I will invite Albus to help. If I have him over again in a couple of days, I suppose that will _really_ give Grindelwald something to think about.”

When Krall grinned back at him, it looked so like Albus at his most pleased that it took Theseus’ breath away for a moment. It wasn’t that he hated pleasing Albus. It was that it had always felt intoxicating when he had.


	4. Albus

14 April 1920

Theseus’ voice whispered in his ear: “Albus.” The professor was glad that he was leaning against his desk instead of walking down the hall, or eating lunch, or giving a demonstration. It was startling, but he gave no outward sign, save a tiny pause in his breathing – something none of the students would notice, with their attention fixed on young Mr. Malfoy.

Another whisper came close on the first: “Not urgent.” Albus wasn’t sure whether to believe that or not. He wasn’t sure if anything would qualify as ‘urgent’ to Theseus. And given this was the first time Theseus was initiating contact in _twelve years…_

“That is a very interesting point, Mr. Malfoy,” Albus said, cutting the child off at the earliest logical opening. And it _had been_ an interesting point, as usual, but that was no reason to indulge the boy – if unchecked, he could have gone on for the rest of the scheduled class period and beyond, fascinating his peers and erasing their every memory of having had opinions of their own through the sheer force of his charm and persuasion. Albus’ one goal for Quintus Malfoy was to teach him how to use this gift sparingly and considerately – a goal on which the future of Wizarding Britain hinged, given the inevitability of Mr. Malfoy one day taking his grandfather’s seat in the Wizengamot.

This was _not_ why Albus had become a teacher – in fact, he resented having to think about these things. But the fact that he would rather pass on his scholarship than teach spoiled Purebloods how not to hold Britain hostage did not give Albus the liberty to ignore the unique political opportunities of his position. Unfortunately, this was a burden he was carrying on his own, as his peers were determined in their ignorance of their own power – and therefore what ought to have been their _shared_ responsibilities when it came to particular charges.

“For next week’s class, I want fourteen inches analysing the Werewolf Containment Bill before the Wizengamot – would it make Wizarding society safer, as Mr. Flint has promised? Would it make _Werewolves_ safer, and is that concern our responsibility? What potential consequences do you see if it is passed, and is there a better solution? Or, as young Mr. Malfoy has just suggested, is there no better choice than to ‘carry on as we have been doing?’ Now, Miss Rowle – remind the class, please, of what I will do if I receive more than fourteen inches from any one student?”

“Cut out a fourteen-inch segment of your choice, and grade only that fourteen inches, Sir.”

“Correct. I am gratified that no one in _this_ class has made the choice to test me so far this year. You are _alone_ among my classes! Do not doubt that I will follow through and so ruin your perfect record. Class dismissed!”

The majority of the students filed out, but Quintus Malfoy marched to the front of the classroom. “Sir. There are twenty minutes left in the class period, and I do not believe that we have received adequate instruction to truly consider every angle of the werewolf problem. For instance, the minority that advocates for full integration –“

“Mr. Malfoy,” Albus interrupted, trying to maintain a veneer of good humour, even as his worry over Theseus was making him impatient. “When have I _ever_ let class go early?”

“Never, Sir. Which is why – ”

“Then it stands to reason that I would not do so now if there were not an urgent need. I am required somewhere else _right now_.” Quintus opened his mouth to argue, but Albus held up a hand to forestall him. “Your concerns are valid, and I have noted them. There will be an optional seminar on the topic on Saturday night, here, during the dinner hour. All third years will be welcome, but advance reservations will be required, so that the house elves may provide us with food. Will that be adequate, Mr. Malfoy?”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir. But might you not also consider – ”

Albus cast a Tempus. “That is _all_ I have time to consider at the moment. Enjoy your now _seventeen_ extra minutes of freedom, Mr. Malfoy. I will see you on Saturday evening. You may bring further petitions at that time.”

Albus stood, and the boy obediently walked out of the classroom. The moment the door closed behind him, a fox made of white light materialized. It wound around Albus’ legs like a housecat before leaping onto a desk and speaking in Theseus’ voice: “My place, eight o’clock tonight. We are overdue for a talk.”

“You absolute shit!” Albus laughed in relief. ‘Not urgent,’ indeed.

Krall had told him to expect an invitation, but Albus had not anticipated that Theseus would actually follow through. And it would never have occurred to Albus to use his Patronus for that purpose. So few people knew his spell – there had been no one to exchange playful or casual messages with in this way... before now.

Albus imagined reading an article and immediately remarking on it to Theseus by Patronus. Conveying an anecdote about the Divination professor by Patronus. Sharing a book recommendation by Patronus.

He could send a Patronus to Theseus to let him know when the rhododendrons bloomed this year. It was not always so predictable – the cold was a factor. The spring Theseus left had been especially cold, and the rhododendrons had not bloomed until after he was gone. Every year after, their blooming reminded Albus of Theseus’ absence – but this year, Theseus was in Britain! Albus could send a Patronus, invite Theseus to come see them…

“You are getting ahead of yourself, Dumbledore,” Albus said out loud in the empty classroom, cutting off that dangerous line of thought. He needed to rein in his enthusiasm, focus on getting through this one visit.

He waved his wand, and a glowing phoenix appeared, hovering in front of him. “I would be delighted. See you then.” He instructed the Patronus to appear when Theseus was alone, and it shot off, through the wall of the castle. After it had disappeared without recall, he began arguing with himself over whether ‘delighted’ was an acceptable social nicety, or whether instead it sounded overeager.

Standing on Theseus’ doorstep, Albus wondered if Krall was watching. He grimaced. Married people were so annoying. Thinking that they held the key to love and relationships and communication, as if they were skilled, instead of lucky. Thinking that their advice was invaluable to single people, who would naturally be happier if they just…

“Albus?” Theseus asked, opening the door. “You didn’t ring the bell. Is everything –“

“Just – thinking about our friend.”

“Which one?”

“The annoying one.”

Theseus laughed. “Again, I ask, _which one?_ ”

“The one who thinks that he could do a better job at being me.”

“Ah. I believe I know the Wizard you mean. If it is any consolation, I didn't find his performance terrifically convincing. Come in, won't you?”

“Don’t you need to ask me a security question?”

“No, it’s you.”

“You cannot possibly know that for certain.”

“I can.”

Albus thought that it was more likely that Theseus would rather take his chances on being wrong than ask something that only the two of them would know. Everything between them was layered with longing and resentment and avoidance. Not that Theseus hadn’t had all day – several days – to come up with something safe to ask.

If this was Theseus at all.

Albus remained stubbornly on the front step. “And what if I’m not sure it is you?”

“You can’t tell?” Theseus asked with a smirk – as if he knew the secret to telling who a person was without security questions and Albus did not. But there was no secret. People saw what they wanted to see, and Albus wanted too badly for Theseus to have invited him to his house. He was vulnerable to an imposter, and he knew it.

“You are already behaving uncharacteristically by inviting me over,” Albus pointed out. “So – tell me who else has seen the scar on your back, and where I was when I saw it.”

"I have several scars on my back."

"The big one, obviously," Albus said. "The new one that you got just recently."

“And by recently, you mean last month. I was in Newt’s basement when you saw me. Newt had just finished cleaning and closing the wound. You entered uninvited. Would you like me to go on? I believe you found a tank of sea monkeys particularly interesting at one point.”

Albus blushed. “Grindylows.”

“That was not some ordinary Colloportus that you pushed through, either. You’re a menace, Dumbledore. Coming in houses when you’ve not been invited, and refusing to come in when you have. By Patronus, which was the point – so that you could know for certain that it was me inviting you.”

“Also, you were showing off.”

Theseus grinned. “Also, I was showing off. Will you come in now?”

Albus followed him into the house, down a narrow hallway, and into a small sitting room. Theseus poured two tumblers of whiskey and gestured for Albus to take one off the tray for himself.

“That was the test,” Albus realized.

“I was already fairly certain, but yes, the real Albus Dumbledore was guaranteed to be suspicious when I did not ask him a security question. Especially when I had asked ‘him’ one a few days before. Even accounting for the fact that the main reason I questioned Krall was because I felt he was unlikely to be you – and had no reason to believe it was Krall, since he had always prearranged our meetings, in the past. If you hadn’t fought me on it… well, you did. So.”

“So,” Albus echoed, and took a sip of whiskey. He wasn’t sure where to begin. Not with what Theseus would have done to an impostor – his reluctance to continue in that line was probably wise. Albus and Theseus had very different ideas about what constituted reasonable force – and acceptable grounds for using it. Not with Krall, nor with the fact that Theseus already had one memory of ‘Albus’ in this room – a room he had never seen before, himself. Not with Krall’s _usual_ way of meeting Theseus, and how it was that Albus had known to suggest it. Certainly not with what he had _not_ told Krall about Theseus' habits, about having seen Theseus one night at Hyde Park Corner several years before, lighting a cigarette for a man before wandering off into the darkness with him. And Albus intended _never_ to disclose the childishly retaliatory sex that he had had afterwards, as if he hadn’t been there looking for a man himself, without a thought for Theseus before seeing him. Though of course, Albus had not been thinking about Theseus in part because he had not even known that he was in the country at the time. He was meant to have been in America.

Albus turned away from Theseus and wandered over to his bookshelves. Another man’s books were a reliable conversation starter. The strategy had never failed Albus yet. Hmm. Theseus had quite a collection of Muggle novels – that was unusual for a Wizard. _Tom Jones_ – that was a wonderful choice, though _not_ safe to discuss, Albus thought. Not tonight. _The House of the Seven Gables_ , though – that might be a promising place to begin.

But what did Theseus have in the way of _magical_ books? Some magical law, of course. A history of MACUSA. P _otions for Law Enforcement_. All trade books then? No – there they were: the philosophy books. _God or Sorcery? Magic and Religion through the Ages_. Albus hadn’t read that one. Another title caught his eye: _Unforgivable?_ Albus picked it up and opened it.

“You can borrow it, if you like,” Theseus said. “Though I will warn you that it is not, as I had hoped, about the relative morality of various curses so much as it is asking the question of whether it is right to call _anything_ 'unforgivable.' It spends a great deal of time arguing against the Dementor's Kiss and other extreme penalties.“

Albus, who had thought about Dementors enough for twenty lifetimes, returned the book to the shelf.

Then he spotted a book he recognized. “That one’s mine!” he accused, pulling _Gold into Lead: Reconsidering Alchemical Values_ off of the shelf. He started flipping through and found one of his own annotations in purple ink… and on the next page some of Gellert’s notes in the dark green ink he had favoured that summer. It had been Gellert’s book – one of the many things that he had left behind. “ _You_ told me one of your mother’s _hippogriffs_ had eaten it!”

Theseus scoffed. “It is astonishing that you can sound _exactly_ as betrayed as if you had ever believed that story.”

“Well, no. I knew that something else had happened to it. But I hadn’t thought...“

He had gotten rid of so many things of Gellert’s over the years. The book had been one of the last holdouts. It was possible, really, that Theseus had saved it, in a way. There was a good chance that Albus would have destroyed it in one of his dark moods. He hadn’t felt the need to set a cathartic fire in several years – the book was safe from him at this point. But in 1907?

“I remember you saying that it had been a stupid book anyway, and was no particular loss,” Theseus said, as if this constituted a defence.

“I didn’t say it was a 'stupid book!' I said it was –“

“A missed opportunity for saying something insightful about utility, written by an author who had had exactly one good idea in his life that he had never understood the full implications of.”

Albus sat in an armchair, still holding the book in his hand.

“Hmm. That _does_ sound like me. But the bit about it not being a loss was a lie. May I –“

“Of course! It’s your book, after all.”

“I can buy you a new copy.”

“Don’t bother. The notes are the only good part. The ideas in the margins – you should work those into an essay. Publish them.”

Albus set the book on a side table and drank some whiskey as if considering the idea. One of many dreams lost, when it came to Gellert, had been publishing with him. It had been one of the consolations of Theseus becoming his apprentice – having someone to bounce ideas off of, someone he could imagine writing with in a not too distant future.

Theseus’ departure had not only brought its own grief, but had unearthed all of the buried heartbreak over Gellert. And his sister, and his brother, and his parents. Albus had felt trapped at Hogwarts, inadequate for life, not really grown up, stalled. And as a professor, the youngest on staff by more than three decades, with nary a whisper of a new hire, any new and exciting person he would ever meet would be a student. It had felt as if, at twenty-six, his life was already over.

Now… now, he had simply learned to have different expectations of life.

More things he didn’t feel like talking about. Theseus could take a turn carrying the conversation, then. He was the one who had invited Albus over, after all.

“Tell me why I’m here, Theseus. I was surprised to hear from you.”

“Krall didn’t – “

“Oh, no, he did say that you would invite me to visit you – but that man is so annoyingly persistent. You could be forgiven for lying to him just to get him to leave you alone.”

Theseus huffed in amusement. “Maybe so. He made a good point, though. I can’t take on Grindelwald alone. I don’t have many people in Britain that I know for certain I can trust, but you –“ Theseus downed his tumbler of whiskey quickly and poured another. “You, I’ve always trusted.”

That seemed like Albus’ cue to confess that he and Gellert had been lovers – see how much Theseus trusted him then. That had been the problem with the apprenticeship, really. Theseus’ confidence in Albus had felt excessive, unwarranted. It still did.

It seemed that any direction the conversation could take was going to require more than half a tumbler of whiskey to get through, so Albus finished his, as well, and held it out to Theseus for a refill.

“We barely know each other anymore, Theseus. Can we talk about Grindelwald, and your plan, and whether or not I’m trustworthy _next_ time? And tonight just – catch up on the past twelve years?”

Theseus held Albus in that unwavering gaze for several seconds before answering. “There’s a story. About you and Grindelwald. And you – don’t want to tell me.”

“Not _yet_. It’s – there’s a lot –“

“Krall actually used the word ‘obsessed’ – said that Grindelwald is _obsessed_ with you.”

“I highly doubt that that is accurate,” Albus said, a bit resentfully, keeping his eyes on the whiskey in his tumbler, in order to avoid having to see the searching look he knew would be on Theseus’ face.

“Have you seen him since the War?”

“No.” Albus risked looking up. Did Theseus look – sympathetic? “No, it’s been much much longer than that.”

Theseus nodded. “All right. We’ll set Grindelwald aside tonight. Let’s just – I apologize, Albus. I should have said yes, one of those times when – let’s imagine that this is just us wanting to see one another because it’s been a long time.”

‘Let’s imagine.’ Because that was _not_ what this was. Because Theseus had planned _always_ to be ‘too busy’ to meet – had never intended to try to become friends again. But – Albus was a big believer in imagination. Many things that were now real had first existed nowhere outside of one person’s imagination.

“What do you want to know, then, Albus? What have you imagined asking me, if I had said yes, if we had gone out to the pub together?”

Why Theseus had left. Whether he was still in love with Albus. Whether he had forgiven him. None of that was realistic, though.

Whether they could find a way to be friends, now that they were older. Share interests and listen to one another’s stories and laugh at one another’s jokes. That was a more manageable line of inquiry.

“Your favourite spell. No! No, a spell you learned, after leaving Britain, that ended up saving your arse or someone else’s, at least once.”

Theseus laughed. “There are _dozens_.”

“Well,” Albus said, “I’ve got at least another three hours.”

The two quickly fell into explaining and demonstrating spells that they had learned or developed during the time they had been mostly apart from one another. After a second whiskey, Albus was pleasantly uninhibited enough to simply enjoy Theseus’ company, without worry or expectation. And by the time he was draining the third, he was laughing more freely at Theseus’ stories, and sharing increasingly outlandish stories of his own.

“You,” Theseus declared, saluting Albus with his tumbler, “are extraordinary. You have created so many extraordinary spells, and –“ his face became a bit angry looking. “And then you just – keep them to yourself! Like a – like a – Freemason!”

“Freemasons are Muggles, aren’t they?”

“You know what I mean, Dumbledore – why the _secrecy?_ ”

“Does it count as keeping secrets if I’m sharing them all with you?” Albus asked. Though Theseus’ point was fair. Albus had been reluctant to share most of these spells with any but a very few.

“But your – what if this fog, for instance, were standard issue to Aurors? We could _use_ this, Albus.”

Oh, the fog. The fog was not all that impressive. Or, no. It _was_ impressive. It was not _showy_ , like the gloves (which he had _not_ told Theseus about. There were limits.) But it _was_ altering the weather, which meant –

“It is not easy to cast.“

“Always that excuse.”

“And it needs to be used sparingly. It can cause significant problems, if Wizards are constantly tinkering with the weather.”

“Who said anything about ‘constant tinkering?’ I’m suggesting that there are specific instances – raiding a known hideout for smugglers, for instance – where being able to control who could see and for how far would be helpful.”

Albus sighed. He didn’t want to sound like he was invalidating Theseus’ choices, but this was going to have to be addressed.

“I don’t trust – listen, I’m not sure I want to give the Auror corps even more of an unfair advantage in _literally every scenario_. You said yourself that you think you have a mole. What if _they_ knew all of these spells? No one group of people is always in the right, Theseus.”

“You’d rather Grindelwald –“

“But you’re not always fighting Grindelwald, are you?”

“I can’t believe you don’t trust –“

And why _should_ Albus have trusted the Auror corps, without any reservation? There were too many reasons not to. For instance:

“ _Edgar Moon._ ”

Albus could tell by the way Theseus’ jaw tensed that he knew the name, as he should. The man had been killed in a duel with Aurors from Theseus’ own department. It had turned out that Moon’s son had not had anything to do with a plot against the Minister’s life, after all – it had been a false accusation levelled by a twitchy co-worker, and the Aurors had not properly investigated before launching a full-scale invasion of the Moons’ house. It wasn’t clear if Edgar had even been aware that the Wizards he was duelling were Aurors.

“You know, I wanted charges brought against them for failing to follow department procedure and for wrongful death, but instead they were transferred to the Creature Registration division.”

Albus didn’t answer that deflection, instead giving another name: “Malcolm Wood.”

The poor Wizard had been subjected to a number of frivolous arrests, at the hands of one particular Auror who just so happened to be his ex-girlfriend. She had never been reprimanded.

“Whatever happened to him? Did Stonebridge finally give up on him?”

“Malcolm is currently hiding under a Fidelius – he has not decided whether to take me up on my offer to help him leave the country. Naturally, he thinks he should not have to expatriate simply because the DMLE is once again not reining in one of their own. My position is that his idealism, while admirable, will not keep him out of Azkaban – or St. Mungo’s for that matter.  
“And then there is Selena Hopkirk.”

Hopkirk had recently been sentenced to a six-year term in Azkaban for ‘unnatural relations.’ The Witch she had been living with, Addie Fortune, had escaped, thanks to Selena’s expert spell casting. Fortune was ‘wanted for questioning.’

“I’ll grant you that that law is singularly unjust. Why it should be any of the Ministry’s business who a person falls in love with, or simply wants to have sex with, for that matter…”

“It is _particularly_ unjust, Theseus, but not _singularly_. There are any number of unjust laws, and the Auror corps exists to enforce them all equally, by the mere virtue of – what’s a majority on the Wizengamot? – by virtue of eighteen well-to-do Wizards having decided once upon a time it should be so. Which is bad enough, without corrupt Aurors like Stonebridge, or incompetent ones like Goyle and Addison.”

“So, you must not think very much of _me_ , then.”

That had been exactly what Albus had been afraid of. Still so sensitive.

“I think the world of you, Theseus. I trust your judgment _completely_. I always have. But that unreserved trust does not extend to _every_ law enforcement officer, nor to the Wizengamot, whose every law you are sworn to uphold, regardless of its wisdom.”

“And yet _you_ , apparently, have been training Aurors around the world every summer.”

Albus rubbed his chin, then made an apologetic gesture. “I am trying to do my part to – humanize the system. Auror departments can be made better. Though not, I think, by simply giving them better weapons. They need to be made more compassionate, more thoughtful – and they need checks on the system. Not everyone is as incorruptible as you are.”

“Incorruptible?” Theseus asked, sceptically.

Albus hummed in agreement. “You have a good heart. You care about people. And you’re brilliant. You think about the consequences of your actions. You put yourself before others. You – “

“You think too much of me, Albus.”

“That is _not_ possible.”

Theseus looked at Albus consideringly. “I think you have had enough whiskey for tonight.”

In fact, Albus felt that he needed at least one more whiskey in order to lose the last inhibitions keeping him from saying what he most wanted to say. He wanted to tell Theseus that he had been able to tell that Theseus had fallen in love with him, all those years ago, just by the ways in which he had said his name. It had seemed as if Theseus was looking for excuses to use it, ‘Albus’ sounding by turns awestruck, pleading, languid, teasing. Albus had recognized each tone, this combination of ways of speaking his name. His name had sounded all of these ways coming off of Gellert’s tongue, too.

He wanted to tell him how scared he had felt of Theseus’ feelings, how certain he’d been that he would destroy Theseus if he gave in, how worried he was that he had destroyed Theseus anyway. Albus wanted to know if there was a way to celebrate all that Theseus had become _because_ he had left Hogwarts and Albus – had lived in the world and met other people – while still apologizing for driving Theseus away, for making him think that he was not good enough, for having been young and inexperienced and clumsy and so much less than what Theseus had deserved. He wanted to climb into Theseus’ lap and –

Yes. Maybe he _had_ had too much whiskey, after all. Which seemed impossible, having only had three, but those last two had been rather _generous_ pours, now that Albus thought about it.

“ _I_ ,” Albus said, with portentous emphasis, “saved the best spell for last – it is like Felix Felicis in shield spell form. And I have never shared it with _anyone_ until now.”

“Oh?” Theseus asked, looking a little amused.

Albus frowned. “I am not drunk!”

“No one said you are,” Theseus said, laughing.

“You said that I had had more than enough whiskey. But I submit that I have had _just exactly_ enough. To share with you –“ Albus waved his wand, and there was a brief trumpet fanfare. Theseus laughed hard enough to spill his whiskey. Albus generously ignored Theseus’ hastily cast Tergeo, and continued, “A spell that will alter _forever_ your notions of what should count as ‘extraordinary.’”

“Big words, Mr. Barnum. Are you sure you should be pointing a wand at me?”

What must Theseus think of him? “I will admit that that sounded a bit – histrionic," Albus said, seriously. "But I was just playing around. I would _never_ cast on you when I’m impaired. Especially a spell like this one, that I have only successfully cast on myself three times. I am only going to describe it, and we can play with it later, if you are still interested. That is, I understand if you are hesitant even later, since it is still experimental, but if I thought that it was in any way dangerous – I would _never_ – “

Theseus sighed and shook his head. “I _know_ , Albus. I was _teasing_. Of all the people I would ever have to worry about being irresponsible with their casting – _never_ you. You are more protective of me than my mother.”

“ _Your_ mother is _significantly_ less protective than the _average_ mother,” Albus protested.

“Albus,” Theseus said, smiling indulgently. “The spell! What does it do?”

“The spell!” Albus said happily. “You are going to _love_ this one! Are you familiar with spell bafflers?”

“Spell _bafflers_?”

“A little known class of charm that – you enchant an object or person or area with it, and rather than entirely block or deflect the spell that strikes it, like a regular shield charm, it alters the spell – somehow renders it less or differently effective.”

Theseus looked wary. “ _Any_ spell that strikes it? That seems – couldn’t that be dangerous? Like tossing an unknown ingredient into a potion?”

“Potions are chemistry. Charms are more – physics!”

“The vastness of what counts as ‘physics’ renders that analogy almost useless, Albus. What you are talking about is taking a spell and transforming it. Whether you want to call it physics, chemistry, or mathematics, the fact remains that a different starting point yields a different ending point. And if your starting point is unknown…”

“Ok, ok. You are right. This is why spell bafflers are not in common use. But this one is different. It unbalances any spell that strikes you to your benefit. It doesn’t apply a standard transformation. It has almost a – consciousness. Prescience, even!”

“How does that even work?” Theseus scoffed.

“How does Felix Felicis work?”

Albus waited, but Theseus seemed to think that this was a rhetorical question. So Albus supplied the answer himself, crowing, “No one knows!”

Theseus was looking at Albus in consternation. “How did you – and - and state your answer _without_ saying Felix Felicis! - How did you develop this spell, if you do not _know_ how it _works_?”

“I was reading a medieval treatise on magical theory years ago, at Flamel’s, and -”

“ _Nicholas_ Flamel? You know _Nicholas Flamel?!_ ”

“Naturally I know Nicholas. He’s _terrifically_ old though. It’s rather frightening if you think of it. It is better not to think of it, I find.”

“So… there was a book…” Theseus prompted with a completely unreadable expression.

“Yes! Yes. A book. The thesis was that the intent and the determination of the caster was less important than _how Magic feels about you._ That surrendering to this – _trusting_ Magic – gave the best results, because _Magic rewards trust_. So, my spell is more of an _invocation_ than an _incantation_ – it surrenders to Magic’s ‘wisdom’ rather than trusting in one’s own intent. But – I cannot say that I have _proved_ anything about _what wisdom is_ , or _whether Magic has it_ , simply because my spell operates on the _assumption_ that it does. Hence – I cannot say that I know how it works. I only know that it _does_ work. So far.”

Theseus looked - mildly alarmed? Albus wasn't sure. “Are you sure that ‘Magic’ is trustworthy, Albus?”

“We act as if it is, every time we cast a spell – we trust our magic to behave as it has in the past – that when we cast an Aguamenti, it will do the same thing that it did the last time we cast that same spell. It extends our life, enhances our healing…”

“ _None_ of that is what I’m asking, as I think you are aware. You are using the word ‘Magic’ as if you are speaking about a sapient entity.”

“I don’t know that it hurts to think so, particularly. Or not. Either way. We’ve no record of Magic itself being malicious, of turning against the magic user, except –“ Albus sighed, thinking of Ariana. “Except in cases when a magic user can be made to distrust their own magic, to the point of fighting it, attempting to suppress it. Which – rather than contradicting my point, I would argue that the phenomenon of Obscurials supports the notion that trusting Magic is critical to the well-being of any Witch or Wizard.”

“You are arguing from an edge case.”

“Rarity and extremity do not make a phenomenon irrelevant.”

Theseus gestured his concession of the point. “So – in practice, this looks like – what?”

“It’s brilliant! Odd, too, though. Comical, arguably.”

“ _Albus._ ”

“Right. So, I used it in a practice duel with Merrythought this past October, instead of a standard shield charm. Merrythought cast an Expelliarmus against me, and I let it hit me to see what would happen. My wand _did_ shoot out of my hand, but she didn’t catch it. It veered at the last moment, smacking her in the forehead and bouncing off to land at my feet! I squatted down to pick it up, and thus incidentally ducked out of the way of the next spell she cast. I had it back in my hand before she could cast a third. Obviously, casting a shield charm on top of it is still beneficial – it would have been better not to lose my wand at all – it didn’t make losing my wand a happy accident. But it mitigated the harm of the Expelliarmus considerably. If your opponent does manage to remove or otherwise get around your shield, then having this additional protection could make the difference between a win and a loss.”

Theseus set down his tumbler and ran his thumb over his lip thoughtfully. “I’m not sure I want to use it in the field until I’ve practiced it. But yes, I’m interested to try it in a practice duel with you – one night when we _haven’t_ been drinking. Without a shield charm, to really test the limits of the spell. And to see what happens when both of us have the spell on us, and we are fighting one another, so neither has the advantage.”

That was an _excellent_ question. What would a duel look like between two people, _both_ of whom were protected from the worst possible outcomes? Both of whom were absurdly lucky?

“Do you suppose it works if you cast it on someone else?” Theseus continued. “Or is it a spell that only works properly if cast by the person whom it is shielding? Will Magic ‘reward the trust’ of the caster so far as to benefit a person who is unaware that the spell has been cast on them?”

That was _also_ an excellent question – Albus had never considered it before, but this could answer Theseus’ desire for the Auror corps to have the spell, as well as Albus’ concerns about that – if it were possible for one observant and trustworthy person to choose when it was appropriate to cast such a spell on their team members…

“That is _brilliant_ , Theseus! By my _magic,_ how I’ve missed you! Tonight’s conversation could fuel my research for _months!_ Just think, if we were to do this _every week!_ I feel as if –“

“Albus. I – yes, let’s do this again soon. But this is a work night for both of us, so it is perhaps better if we stop here, for tonight?”

Albus did not want to stop _ever_. But it was after midnight, and he had five classes to teach the next day, starting with one at nine o’clock in the morning. And Theseus was not, it seemed offering him –

“You should stay here tonight,” Theseus said. “In the – in the guest room. It’s – I don’t want you to splinch, and there isn’t floo service this late in Hogsmeade, and –“

“Merlin. Thank you. Yes. I am not fit to apparate.”

Theseus led Albus up the stairs, he opened a door and pointed. “This is you,” he said.

Albus walked in and collapsed on the bed, fully dressed, without a word.

Just before seven the next morning, in front of the floo, Theseus hugged Albus. He felt warm and solid, and Albus wished they were still a bit drunk, so that he could cling to Theseus longer and Theseus might not notice. But they were not, so when Theseus began to pull away, Albus stepped back and patted Theseus on the shoulder and said something vague about getting together again soon. Then he stepped into the floo and whirled away.


	5. Gellert

8 – 10 May 1920

Word had gotten back to Gellert that Theseus Scamander had made some critical remarks about the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, particularly in the context of his experience with Rappaport’s Law in the States. Gellert had… _arranged_ to take the place of the Austrian foreign minister at a dinner party given by Hector Fawley, in order to finally meet the man. Theseus' concerns were not Gellert’s concerns, but they did give Gellert something to work with – the unfairness of disallowing mixed marriages between Muggles and Wix, the alienation Muggleborns experienced from their families, the missed opportunities to coordinate law enforcement efforts when Wix committed crimes in the Muggle community – or, more rarely, when Muggles injured Wix.

By the end of the evening, Theseus was contending, “It doesn’t matter how charming Grindelwald is, or how correct, if he makes his point by breaking the law. There are legal channels for accomplishing his goals.”

The ‘Austrian Minister’ had traced his finger along Theseus’ thigh under the table and asked, “Speaking of lawbreakers, what are your thoughts on the Selena Hopkirk case? Do you think she would have found it more - _satisfying_ to wait for a legislative solution?”

Theseus had not flinched or startled, as a man unaccustomed to the touch of another man would have done. He had even seemed to encourage 'the Minister' for a moment, laying his hand on top of Gellert's and then slowly dragging one finger along the back of his hand and stroking his wrist. But he quickly thought better of it - sighing, gently moving Gellert's hand back to his own chair, and lightly slapping it as he let go.

"You make an excellent point, Herr Sommer. I do _not_ require any further persuasion on that topic."

Gellert would have liked to have thought that this was a hopeful sign - a man who was _almost_ interested in the Austrian Minister might be more amenable to another Wizard - say, perhaps, a blonde in his late thirties. But Herr Sommer was very attractive, and Theseus _had_ initially been inclined to reciprocate. It was unlikely that the problem lay in what the Minister was: a six foot tall fifty-two year old man with a full head of salt and pepper hair and striking hazel eyes. Instead, Gellert feared that the problem lay in _who_ the Minister was _not_ : Albus.

Whatever estrangement had once existed between the two men, it was undeniable that they were close _now_. Albus had only been seen entering Theseus’ house twice – the last time having been three weeks before. But Albus had only been seen _exiting_ Theseus’ house _once_ – which meant either that he had stayed all night the second time, or that he been given floo access – or both. There was no way to tell just how often Albus had been there since then. The two had been seen getting drinks together in Hogsmeade as well, and Theseus had come to speak to Albus' NEWT level Defence class. Gellert had to wonder if they were close enough to account for Theseus pulling away from the Austrian Minister. Without Albus in the picture, would he have found himself on a long walk in the garden with Theseus Scamander that evening?

The conversation had been inconclusive politically as well. It was almost certain that Theseus was playing a game - trying to draw Gellert into revealing himself. But that did not mean that he had been insincere about his dissatisfaction with the current state of Wizarding-Muggle relations. It was a risk worth taking, for the possible payoff of drawing a man of Theseus' intelligence - and influence in the Ministry - into Gellert's corner. But Albus would never allow anyone he cared about to get close to Gellert, and it was impossible to say how difficult it would be to separate the two.

It was, Gellert knew, almost certainly a doomed endeavour. Which was (according to the accusing voice that haunted him in the small hours) his favourite kind of endeavour. That is to say - it was likely that Gellert would have continued his slow-motion pursuit of the Auror if, two days after their first meeting, Alexis Carrow had not lost her patience.

  
In fairness, the bloodthirsty woman had not fired a single Avada in the two months prior, and had been given only one task in that whole time which required even minimal amounts of violence. Gellert _had_ been hoping to keep a low profile while reassessing his followers – and his opposition – but that decision was now taken away from him, and he could only blame himself for having lost sight of what his followers needed in order to stay in line.

“Carrow. She’s at _The Prophet_ ,” MacDuff gasped as he threw open the door to the parlour – as if he had been running instead of… well, no. There would have had to have been running involved, if he had come from Diagon, given the anti-apparition wards over that entire district, and the fact that Headquarters was not connected to the floo network. “She’s completely lost her head. There’s not –“

Not much time, yes, that was obvious.

“Rosier!” Gellert shouted, and in seconds, Vinda, Krall, and Selwyn were all gathered in Gellert’s study.

“Carrow has taken it upon herself to attack _The Daily Prophet_. _We_ have to be the ones to take her down, lest she discredit us all. If we are lucky, the Aurors will not have heard about this yet, and we will be able to modify the memories of the survivors. If we are _un_ lucky, we are risking an open fight against Magical Law Enforcement. In order for it to be clear that she does _not_ speak for us, I have to make myself visible. Rosier, you come with me. Krall, Selwyn, MacDuff – Polyjuice. Wait in reserve, in case the legal wands show, and we need backup.”

Without another word, Gellert took Vinda by the elbow and apparated away.

Gellert had visited Diagon Alley several times since returning to Britain, but for some reason, he had landed in a place he had only seen once, decades ago – an untraveled courtyard behind Flourish and Blott’s.

“Why are we _here?_ ” Vinda hissed.

Gellert tried to push away the image of Albus crowding him against the wall and grinding against him, but instead the memory took over, complete with the before-now forgotten details of the taste of raspberries lingering on Albus' lips and tongue, and the rosemary infused scent of Albus’ laundry soap.

“It’s the most secluded spot in Diagon I know,” he answered, truthfully.

“We could have apparated right into _The Prophet’s_ offices,” Vinda complained.

The anti-apparition wards on Diagon were strong – as far as Gellert knew, he was the only person who could apparate through them, and that was only because he held the Elder Wand. Vinda should not complain of what she could not do better, he thought.

He had intended to get to Diagon, and to get to Carrow quickly and discretely. There had to be a reason that his unconscious mind had lit on this place – something more than how long you could go on snogging a boy there undiscovered. He scanned the area slowly – aha! _The Daily Prophet’s_ back door opened into this courtyard as well, which he must have noticed before – with the single brain cell that had been aware of anything other than his hands and his cock and his mouth, and his competitive urge to make Albus come before he did, this time.

Gellert gestured to the door with his head. “No, this way is better,” and strode towards the building that housed _The Prophet_ , knowing that he didn’t have to say anything for Vinda to follow.

Once inside, he locked the door behind the two of them, so that _anyone_ – except for Carrow – could escape, but no one could get in. Ideally, he didn’t want anyone leaving until everyone knew he had nothing to do with this, but it would look bad for him if innocent people were killed trying to get out the door. Attacking _journalists!_ So counter-productive. So needless. Gellert did not need a setback like this.

He wished he could say that Carrow was more dangerous than he had realized, but he had known exactly what he was getting with her. She was an executioner – and it was convenient to have an executioner. It saved Gellert from having to kill people himself. But he had not thought it through properly – there were bound to be times, like now, when there wasn’t a clear _need_ to kill anyone. If he wanted to keep Carrow – without risking her going off on her own like this – he was going to have to invent reasons to kill people that he might otherwise have let live.

‘Or you can cut her loose,’ he thought. ‘Let the Aurors have her.’  
‘No, I have a responsibility towards her. I enabled this.’  
‘She was like this already. You channelled her aggression – you didn’t create it.’  
‘I fed it.’  
‘ _Let her go_.’  
‘She’s loyal.’  
‘Going off on her own is _not_ loyalty.’

Gellert shook his head.

‘Ok?’ Rosier mouthed.

Gellert shrugged.

They pulled out their wands and moved down the hall, into a large back room filled with the presses, now quiet, and stacks of plain paper. 'Newspapers use paper,' Gellert thought, 'so why do Witches and Wizards otherwise use parchment?' It wasn’t as if paper were particularly Muggle. But even if paper _were_ Muggle, the division between their worlds was so wasteful. Paper was far cheaper and easier to make, and it did not require killing an animal. Muggles were less powerful, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But they had many resources, even inventions, that the Wizarding world could benefit from. The cultural preference for parchment – it was idiotic.

“Gellert!” Vinda hissed. This was why he didn’t go out on missions with them very often – in a new place, in the absence of any life-threatening action (and sometimes even in spite of it), he had a tendency to get lost in his head. He waved his hand apologetically, and she led them through a door that led into another hallway, this one lined with doors, all opened, revealing empty offices. At the end of the hallway was another door, closed this time. Gellert held up his hand, gesturing silently for Vinda to stop. He pressed the tip of his Wand to the door, and the image of a large room was revealed, projected onto the door as if it were one of the Muggles’ silent moving pictures. The room was filled with desks. Gellert could see people hidden beneath some of them. Other people were firing spells at Alexis from behind chairs and cabinets. Alexis fired a Confrigo at one of the Witches who was fighting back. The Witch moved out of the way, and the curse blew a hole in the floor, where she had been standing. Gellert counted at least two dead.

“Oh, Alexis,” Gellert murmured. “What have you done?” He turned behind him to look at Vinda. “Shields up.”

“Obviously,” she whispered back, offended.

“Always with the backtalk. Why do I put up with you?”

“Because I am the _only one_ with 'the backtalk.'”

It was true. The others were too scared to do anything but agree.

Gellert disappeared the door and stepped into the room. Immediately, a spell bounced off his shield – a young woman had tried to take him unawares. Gellert summoned her wand to him and moved further into the room. “Carrow! Enough!” he called.

“It’s Grindelwald!” a man shouted. Three more spells hit his shield. He growled in frustration. He had no desire to end any Wizarding lives today, but he was going to have to start firing back soon, and the Wizarding public likely would not appreciate the difference between Alexis’ unprovoked attack and him merely defending himself while trying to stop her.

“Why would I _stop_? They are in our way!” Carrow asked. “Stubbornly supporting the Statute of Secrecy. Calling you a terrorist. You! Who would save us!”

Gellert couldn't get a spell off against her. He was too distracted by the many Witches and Wizards trying to take _him_ down. Idiots. They should have been focusing their attention on the Witch who had _actually killed people today_. Before she had finished speaking, another four spells had hit his shield. If he had been holding any wand other than the Elder Wand, at least one of those would have hit. There were too many wands in the room, Gellert feared. He shot off a rapid series of Disarming charms, collecting wands and shoving them in his coat pocket.

But the spells kept coming. Gellert was transported back to Godric’s Hollow, everyone fighting one another, everyone shouting, who was on whose side not entirely clear – excepting only that he was fighting Aberforth. No, not Aberforth - Carrow. Aberforth had not been firing Avadas.

Had he?

Alexis took advantage of the distraction Gellert's arrival had created to Avada another – journalist, presumably.

“No!” Gellert shouted, reacting with a Stunning spell so high powered that Carrow flew across the room.

Just a moment before Alexis struck a large cabinet, the door on the opposite side of the room opened, and in came two men.

It was Scamander. How had he found them _again?!_ And Scamander had brought Albus. Gellert's throat tightened. He had _killed_ someone, and Albus had arrived only just in time to see him do it.

He watched helplessly as Albus went running to see if Alexis was ok. He bent down beside her and brushed her hair from her brow tenderly, not knowing how undeserved the gesture was. The last time Gellert had seen Albus, he had been squatting just that way next to the corpse of another young woman. Gellert had no doubt that a corpse was what he had found this time, too – the force with which Alexis had struck the cabinet, the unnatural angle of her neck – Gellert hadn’t intended for her to die, but he had not cared when he cast the spell if she did. He had needed for her to stop, and a part of him had known she would _never_ stop – that if he had insisted on continuing to stand in her way, she would have turned her wand on him. Killing her had been unlooked for, and perhaps premature, but almost certainly inevitable.

Gellert had imagined meeting Albus again. Usually those daydreams disintegrated into shouting and recriminations, into Albus saying something yet more hurtful than the silence which had followed Ariana's fall. “ _You_ killed her," daydream Albus said. "You killed my sister! How many other people have you killed? _Is this all you're good for?_ " Or "I wish we had never met. Everything about my life is _worse_ because _you exist_." Or "I was _never_ going to go with you, anyway. Did you really think I _loved_ you? You were _convenient_. Who else was I going to find to suck my cock in _Godric's Hollow?_ "

But Gellert had been wrong, he thought now. _Nothing_ Albus could have said was worse than this moment - seeing Albus again for the first time, older now – hair a touch less vibrant, beard fuller, shoulders broader – but with his expression _unchanged_ – silent tears rolling down his face as he looked up at Gellert in complete incomprehension.

“Albus,” Gellert whispered, miserably. Gellert wondered now, as he had wondered then, if he was the only person who had ever made Albus Dumbledore cry. He wanted nothing more than to die.

“Gellert Grindelwald!” Scamander called out. Gellert turned his attention to the Auror. Gellert recognized that blank expression – the determined look of a killer. The man strode forward until he was standing only eight feet away, his wand never straying in its aim, pointed at the centre of Gellert’s chest. “You are under arrest for murder –“

The unfairness of this accusation from a self-righteous law-Wizard snapped Gellert out of his melancholy.

“She had _killed three people_ ,” Gellert protested, turning his Wand on the Auror. “It was a fucking public service.”

“Four!” a voice called out.

“Killed on his orders,” another man said.

“No! Grindelwald _stopped_ her. If he had ordered her to...“

While they argued, Gellert did not allow his eyes to stray from Theseus Scamander - looking for any sign of movement, of change. Gellert was furious. How had the Wizard gotten there so quickly? No one had known he was coming. Gellert itched to test the man, but he would _not_ fire first. Gellert had come to _de-_ escalate the situation, and he wasn't going to let himself be tempted.

The Auror’s wand was steady - he had not yet fired either. Was he – listening? Actually reconsidering his first judgment of the scene?

Gellert turned to look at Albus – Albus’ eyes were fixed on Gellert. Which was – probably the worst possible choice, since Gellert was the only person in the room that was incapable of causing him harm. Not that there was anyone in the room who _would_ harm Albus, now that Alexis was dead. But Albus had no way of knowing –

Two men came running in through the door Albus and Scamander had entered. “We’re here!” they announced. “We’ve another outside.”

“Who’s we?” Scamander turned and asked. One of the men fired a hex at him in answer. Well, fuck.

It had been MacDuff, most likely. He had an ‘itchy trigger finger,’ as they said in those American cowboy novels Bathilda had sent to Gellert when he was a boy, to help him learn English. What an ill-considered ‘rescue.’ Gellert had been well on his way to resolving the matter without any further spells being fired. He would not use MacDuff as backup again. Better to leave him at Headquarters, in the absence of clear instructions.

And now there _were_ Wizards here who posed a danger to Albus. His own men. Fuck. What was Albus doing here at all? Had he known that Gellert would be here? And if so, why had he come? It wasn’t like he could do anything to stop him. Not that there had been anything to stop. Or. There had, but, it hadn’t been _Gellert_ –

Gellert’s attention was caught by MacDuff, the cabbage head, who was calling out all of his spells audibly. For all the stars, he was a _grown Wizard_! When they got back to Headquarters, Gellert was disbanding his team, packing up, and returning to the Continent. Vinda could come with him if she could forgive him this disaster. Krall… maybe. Otherwise, Gellert was starting over. Assuming he was still alive and not in prison at the end of the day.

Scamander had not bothered taking cover, but just stood there taunting MacDuff and the other Polyjuiced Wizard as he fired spell after spell. He never stopped moving. Clever. He was doing a good job of distracting the newest combatants, keeping them from remembering the second man they had seen enter.

Albus, for his part, was darting from desk to desk, whispering to the people crouched beneath them. He stopped for a long time talking to a young Wizard with wild hair and a bright blue coat. They both turned to look at Gellert, and then began talking again. The young Wizard began moving towards the back door, finally exiting with three others he had gathered along the way. Gellert began moving towards Albus, continuing to collect the wands of any he noticed casting spells at him. Finally, there was just a single desk between them.

“Look,” Gellert whispered insistently. “Albus, look at me!” He pushed everything relevant to the current situation to the outside of his occlumency shields. “Read me, Albus.”

Albus ducked down to avoid a spell, then popped back up and met Gellert’s eyes. Albus' eyes widened. “Gellert –“ he choked out, brokenly.

It hadn’t called for all _that_. He had just been trying to get Albus to understand. To maybe – well, to call his Auror off, would have been the plan, if MacDuff hadn’t fucked that completely. Why couldn’t the clod have waited for orders?

Albus looked in Scamander’s direction, and Gellert followed his gaze. The Auror had managed to relieve MacDuff of his shield, and was using – was that a scouring charm? MacDuff had to be blinded, as covered with suds as he was, and Scamander took advantage of his flailing and disorientation to land a blow with his fist, knocking MacDuff backwards into the other Wizard (Selwyn? Krall?) The two tangled in one another and tumbled onto the floor, and the Auror took a moment to scan the room.

The younger Wizard’s formerly blank expression turned anxious when he found Albus. He gestured with his head at Gellert. Albus shook his head and made a slashing motion, and Theseus nodded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again after glancing at Gellert. He nodded at Albus again, and as he turned away, the blankness came over his face again.

Gellert watched as the young Auror kicked at the two Wizards on the floor, bound them, and stalked off to look for - something else.

Theseus Scamander either _couldn't_ hide his emotions from Albus, or needed not to. Gellert didn't know what his every expression had been meant to convey, but he knew what lay behind it: Love. Theseus Scamander _loved_ Albus - and trusted him enough simply to accept it and turn away when Albus indicated that he didn't need any assistance with Gellert. And Albus – how did Albus feel about Theseus? Were they -

Gellert heard someone cry out, ‘Oppugno,’ and a quill flew at him with such speed that it drove through his jacket _and_ his shirt with still enough momentum left over to pierce his arm. The pain was clarifying. Gellert was supposed to be putting a stop to this fiasco, not pondering where he went wrong with his teenaged boyfriend more than twenty years before. Not losing his focus so completely as to be taken unawares by _stationery supplies_.

Gellert took a hesitant step backwards and began scanning the room. Vinda was hidden behind a desk, eyeing Theseus' progress from a small distance. Theseus was levitating a desk, and ordering the Wizard beneath it to evacuate. Not-MacDuff was - a clever little shit. How had he gotten out of those bonds so quickly?

“Gellert.” It was Albus. Gellert met his eyes again. Albus was – almost smiling at him. “Shields down, Gell,” Albus whispered. “Just for a moment. Trust me.”

Gellert trusted Albus’ competence at least. He had _never_ trusted Albus not to hurt him, hence the pact. Which had not prevented the only hurt that mattered, and which now was standing in the way of Albus hurting Gellert in any way that would be satisfying. No one would argue that Gellert didn’t deserve any of the things that Albus could not, as it happened, do to him.

‘Albus may be the key to putting a stop to this,’ Gellert thought. And not only because of Albus' drive to placate, which had been very annoying long ago when they had needed to argue and Albus _just wouldn't_ , but would be useful in a situation like this one. It was also because he had many other non-Gellert-ish traits – such as patience, the ability to keep his attention on the task at hand, and most importantly, the quality of not having been invoked as the inspiration for the incredibly recent murder of four people in this very room. And Albus was sure to have some impressive spells to back up his efforts. That Wizard could invent a new spell in less time than it took most men to make a sandwich. It was absurd. Gellert remembered the time when -

Fuck. _He_ loved and trusted Albus, too. Of all things. He _never_ should have come back to Britain. Had _sworn_ that he wouldn’t, and _now_ look. He was going to bring down his fucking shield in the midst of a barely fucking paused melee, just because some earnest fucking Wizard that he had not seen in more than twenty _fucking_ years was asking him to do it.

Gellert released his shield and nodded.

"Te confido," Albus murmured, pointing his wand up and making a swirling motion, then bringing it down diagonally to the left, so that the point was just inches away from Gellert’s heart. Gellert didn’t think in that moment about how it would look for Albus to have a wand pointed at him in such close quarters. He only felt washed over with warmth and hopefulness. What sort of incantation had that been? _‘I trust you?’_

“Shields up, now,” Albus whispered again.

Gellert ached to kiss him, but this was not the right time to kiss him (there would never again be a right time to kiss him), so Gellert swept his gaze over the room again and spotted Not-MacDuff pointing his wand at Albus. Selwyn, then – Krall would have left well enough alone, unless Gellert had signalled him. Why didn’t he have more _reasonable_ followers, like Krall and Vinda? Gellert did not need some second-rate Wizard coming in and saving his fucking arse from someone who was not even trying to hurt him. Irritated by Selwyn’s overreach, and feeling uncomfortably protective towards Albus, Gellert fired an Incarcerous at his own man.

The ropes bounced off of Theseus’ shield – he had stepped into the space between Gellert and Selwyn at just the wrong moment. Theseus turned and fired at Gellert in retaliation. Vinda emerged from behind a cabinet and began throwing furniture at Theseus – and the fight somehow was escalating again.

This had to stop. Gellert pointed the Elder Wand at the space between Theseus and Vinda. It wasn’t a named spell – it wasn’t anything he had ever tried. It was sheer desperation. A silent plea for reason, clarity, understanding – a _pause_.

Time slowed. As Gellert’s spell left his wand, he watched Albus dart behind a desk and shoot a disarming spell at Vinda, at the same time that Vinda unleashed a Confrigo on the desk behind which Albus was hiding. Selwyn shot a sticking charm at Theseus, while Theseus fired a Confundus at a new Wizard, who had just come running in the door Selwyn had his back to – the door through which everyone but Gellert and Vinda had come. And some unknown journalist (alone among her peers) decided to _not_ attack Gellert, but instead to cast a long-overdue one-way locking charm on that door, presumably to prevent any further complications. (Smart woman. He wondered if she would like to replace Selwyn, who was going to be retiring.)

None of these six Wizards’ spells hit their intended targets. Instead they met in a brilliant flash of white light. Gellert saw Albus and Theseus both flying backwards, even as he himself was lifted into the air. The green flash of an Avada rose to meet him. Gellert felt unafraid, but sorry that Albus had not gotten to hear Gellert say those words back to him: ‘te confido.’ Pain had nothing on imminent death for clarity. In his final moment, Gellert realized that every time he had doubted Albus, he had been wrong to do it. And whatever Albus had done to him, the assurance that had filled Gellert just after Albus’ spell had been cast had been the best he had felt in _years_.

The last thing Gellert heard before he lost consciousness was a voice like the roar of the ocean: ‘Ébredj kedvesem.’

>><><<

Someone was pulling on Gellert’s arm, insistently.

“We have to _leave_ , before the Aurors arrive.”

“Who - ?” Gellert asked, uncertainly. He didn’t recognize this Wizard.

“Sorry, right. Polyjuice. It’s Krall.”

The man kept talking, but Gellert didn’t need to hear more. Krall was good. Krall was a friend.

Where _was_ he? Right. _The Daily Prophet_. There had been a fight. There was a crazy woman attacking the newspaper offices, and he and Albus and Theseus had been trying to stop her. It was so exhilarating when they could work together openly like this. But awful, too – the way Theseus just flung himself into danger, as if he didn’t have anyone who loved him, who cared whether he made it home… 

Gellert had been too far away when Theseus was hit by the blast. Was he ok? And where was Albus? He had been behind some furniture - perhaps he had been protected? No! Gellert remembered now – Albus had been hit too! Where were they?! Gellert began to panic.

“Theseus! Theseus was hit! And Albus – Krall, listen to me –“

“Yes, you won’t be needing to worry about Theseus Scamander and Albus Dumbledore getting in your way for a good long while,” Krall answered.

“Getting in my –“ Oh. Even Krall did not know. It wasn’t safe, of course – such relationships were against the law, but – Gellert would have to be careful, now that he didn’t remember whom they had trusted with their secret. “This is not how I would have – yes, we don’t always agree, but they are both _assets to the Wizarding community_ , and we need to be _sure_ that they are not –“

“No one was killed here today save the four on Carrow’s account, and there are Healers on their way now for the injured,” Krall answered. “As well as Aurors, so stop worrying about other people, and _get out of here_. They’ve been waiting for something _just like this_ to pin on you.”

Gellert wasn't worrying about 'other people.' He was worrying about _Albus and Theseus._ He couldn't just leave - not without seeing his Wizards, reassuring himself that they were not badly injured. Gellert tried to calm himself by disappearing into a daydream - imagining the way that Albus would tease him about this moment later tonight: ‘Such a worrier, so needy, can't let us out of your sight for a minute…‘ And then they would both fuss at Theseus for taking unnecessary risks, and Theseus would grin wickedly and reply that they were just jealous that he had more energy than his two ‘old men,’ and – it was all going to be fine. If only he could _believe_ that. Imagining it didn't make it so. Where _were_ they?

“No, I’m sorry. It will not look good if we flee, Krall. We were _helping_. Though I suppose it will not look good for _you_ that you are currently Polyjuiced, given the restrictions on its use. I suppose you don’t have a license? So, if you feel the need to leave, I will understand. But I will vouch for you, if you choose to stay. Surely it is more important that – “

“Have you _forgotten_ who you _are?_ ” Krall asked, appalled.

“Of course not! I am Gellert Grindelwald, famous advocate for the repeal of the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, two-time all-Europe youth duelling champion, and –“

And husband to Albus Dumbledore and Theseus Scamander.

“And surely the Aurors will want to know my side of the story.”

“Oh, I’m sure they will,” Krall said.

A beautiful and well-dressed woman approached them. She moved with confidence and efficiency. Gellert knew her from somewhere, but he was not sure whether she was friendly or not. How much of his memory had he lost, exactly? This was an annoyance. Hopefully it would resolve itself quickly without him needing to take time off to go see a Healer.

“Rosier. Thank fuck,” Krall said. “We have a situation.”

“I apologize, Miss – Rosier? Mr. Krall here seems to think that we should _flee_ rather than give our statements. But I was thinking – “

Gellert saw the flash of the Stupefy just before it hit him. When he woke in an unfamiliar bed, he felt certain – this Rosier was definitely _not_ friendly. And he might need to rethink his assessment of Krall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ébredj kedvesem = 'Wake up, Darling' in Hungarian  
> Or, I hope it does  
> I didn't do my due diligence and check with a native speaker this time  
> So if you speak Hungarian - I will happily take correction


	6. Theseus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theseus and Albus share a moment before entering the offices of _The Daily Prophet._  
>  Later, in the aftermath of the skirmish, Newt suspects something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read chapter 5 before February 7: I have changed the incantation for Albus’ special ‘what if Felix Felicis was a shield?’ spell. It was originally _tibi credo_ in chapter 5, but it is now is _te confide_. I feel like confidere is a much better fit for an invocation of the type Albus describes in chapter 4 than credere is, and tibi was the wrong declension of the second person singular pronoun (what I wanted was not dative, but accusative – yet another Google translate cautionary tale.)  
> Sorry for the confusion – I had gotten sloppy and not taken the time to teach myself the necessary Latin before posting chapter 5.
> 
> See end notes for a spoilery discussion of the dynamics at work in the triad's accidental fake secret marriage

10 May 1920

Theseus hadn’t known that Albus had taught Newt how to make his Patronus speak, but as he strode to the Ministry floos, he was grateful that he had. How did his brother manage to get himself into these messes? Hiding under a desk at _The Daily Prophet_? What was he even _doing_ there?

Hopefully Albus was on his way – Theseus couldn’t remember Albus’ class schedule, didn’t know if he would be able to get away to listen to Theseus’ message in time. He didn’t want to bring along any Aurors unless he couldn’t possibly avoid it. His conversations with Albus of late had been… revealing? Thought provoking? No. Earth-shaking.

Theseus could never kill Grindelwald now. Theseus knew all too well the tangle of emotions that came with a seemingly permanent estrangement, no matter how much time had passed, and Albus’ connection with Grindelwald had been far more intimate than the one he and Theseus had shared, and the break had been far more traumatic – and absolute. Albus _might_ recover if Grindelwald were to die, but Theseus felt sure that it would break Albus beyond repair to have a close friend – one of the only people who knew the whole miserable story – kill his former lover.

But Theseus could not guarantee that he would have enough control not to kill the man if he were accompanied by other Aurors. More Aurors meant more complications, more violence, more people that he was bound to protect putting themselves in the position of Theseus needing to back up their bad decisions. Even one more Auror on the scene would increase the likelihood of Grindelwald being killed by _someone_ – and as strange as it would have seemed to him a month before, Theseus was reluctant to endanger the man that he had once seen as the most dangerous Wizard in Europe. Theseus could no longer even agree that it would be appropriate to hand him over to the British Ministry. Grindelwald needed to be stopped, yes. Contained. But turning him, if possible, would do much more for the Wizarding world than making a martyr of him. Particularly as his ideas were not completely wrong, if you stripped away the bigotry and the violence.

Albus seemed to think that rehabilitating him was possible, and while Theseus could recognize that Albus was incapable of being objective when it came to Grindelwald, it was only fair to note that so was everyone else. And Albus had information that no one at the Ministry had. Albus’ analysis was biased, and if not outright discounted, should at least be viewed with caution. But the stories themselves… Grindelwald had genuinely felt for Ariana (Albus doubted this now, but Theseus did not) and had identified with her on some level. He had been solicitous towards his Aunt in ways that did not benefit him. And he had passed up on several obvious opportunities to manipulate Albus’ emotions. Whether he had been ‘in love with’ Albus, Theseus couldn’t say, but there were so many little details that made it plain that he had cared for Albus deeply (more deeply than Albus knew – Theseus recognized the hallmarks of an inexperienced teenager trying to hide his vulnerabilities, not that he had any intention of sharing this insight with Albus and further complicating his grief.) They had been true friends as well as lovers.

This was information that those blinkered paper-pushers (dear Merlin, he was beginning to sound like Newt) would discount as whimsical or irrelevant, when in fact it revealed the most significant thing that could be said about Grindelwald’s worth as a human being: Grindelwald was _capable of empathy_. In Theseus’ experience, there was nothing more dangerous than a complete lack of fellow-feeling. Theseus wasn’t sure if Grindelwald had learned how to turn it on and off, as Theseus had, or if instead his empathy was incompletely developed – extendable only to certain significant people. But the fact that it was there at all meant to Theseus that there was a salvageable core. Even without considering Albus’ feelings, or the political consequences of turning Grindelwald into a cause célèbre, to lose a Wizard of Grindelwald’s caliber to Dementors would be a waste of human resources.

Theseus stepped out of a restricted floo in Knockturn Alley. He disillusioned himself and walked down the street and onto Diagon, slipping into an alley across the street from the offices of _The Daily Prophet_. It looked – the same as always. There was no sign that there was anything out of the ordinary happening inside.

“Your disillusionment is quite good.” Albus’ voice came in a whisper – so close that Theseus could feel his breath, could smell the potion he used to clean and smooth his hair.

Albus was already here. The relief that Theseus felt made him want to kiss the man, but Theseus would not have their first kiss be when neither of them could see the other. Nor when – wait. _First_ kiss? When had Theseus decided –

“Not good _enough_ , if you could spot me so quickly,” Theseus said, peevishly, in his discomfort at Albus’ nearness and his own inconveniently timed realization that he had opened his heart to Albus _again_.

“I knew where to look,” Albus answered, removing his disillusionment.

“What are you doing?” Theseus protested, still more uncomfortable at seeing Albus’ face so close to his own.

“We need to be able to see one another, if we don’t want to accidentally hurt one another.”

Theseus took a step back, deeper into the shadow – increasing his distance in a way that he could justify as ensuring he would not be spotted when he removed his disillusionment charm. “Won’t your baffler take care of that?”

“You want to use the baffler?” Albus asked, stepping into the shadow as well and leaning against the wall beside Theseus, but not so near as he had been before, thank Merlin.

“There has to be a first field use at some point, right?”

Albus nodded. “Still, I think being able to see one another…”

Theseus agreed. He removed his disillusionment and cast a Te Confido on himself before putting up his shield. He loved the way Albus’ baffler felt. Most spells either felt like nothing at all or felt odd or uncomfortable in some way. This one felt like – like walking into the Great Hall the first night, third year, looking up at the vaulted ceiling and the floating candles before finding a place at the table with his friends. Like coming upon four-year-old Newt sitting under a tree lisping solemnly to a bowtruckle that was standing on the small boy’s leg and listening attentively. It felt like love had felt when he was a child, before love had become complicated.

“Stun and capture?” Theseus asked, only to confirm what he already knew.

“The priority is to get Newt out of there, along with any other civilian who is trapped inside.”

Theseus scoffed. “Good luck getting a journalist to leave an active crime scene.”

“There’s more than one story there,” Albus perceived. “Ok. That changes things, if we can’t get every potential victim out of range of the spellfire.”

It sure did. Theseus could not stand journalists – always in the way, and then afterwards fixating on the most outrageous details, ignoring the larger issues as often as not…

“Starting over,” Albus continued. “Instead, the priority is to get Newt out of there, to create an _opportunity_ for any other civilian whom we can persuade to do so to leave, and to neutralize all combatants. An equally important but admittedly secondary goal is for neither of us to be killed or permanently injured in the effort. Assuming that _all_ of these prior conditions can be met… if we see an opportunity to capture Grindelwald, then yes. Stun and capture.”

“And these ‘other combatants’ – we just incapacitate them and leave them behind? Or we take them, too?”

“I’ll leave it to you how many possible kidnapping charges you want on your account,” Albus answered with a wink.

That affable anti-authoritarianism was too much for Theseus. He closed the distance between himself and Albus, pressing their lips together before even making a decision to do it. He was so washed over with _relief_ at finally having done it, after all of those years, that he sighed as he pulled away.

“Theseus?” Albus asked. He looked – confused?

“I – “ Did Albus not feel the same way? “You – “ There had been so many little signs, but perhaps –

Albus kissed him lightly, quickly. “We’ll discuss this later, but you… I mean, that wasn’t…“ Albus took a deep breath. “I’m assuming you don’t make a habit of just kissing whomever is handy before entering a high stakes duel? Because I – I’m needing that to have been something more than you burning off an excess of nervous energy.”

Theseus smiled in relief. “I can assure you that I was very much kissing _you_.” Theseus turned and looked again at their destination, mentally shaking off the kiss and trying to find his focus.

“Sorry about the timing. I’ll do better by you later,” Theseus promised.

“Stay safe for me,” he heard Albus saying from behind him. “Don’t go getting killed just to get out of talking about this.”

And wasn’t that tempting. With Albus’ admonition, Theseus’ giddy schoolboy ‘I kissed my crush!’ moment began to fade, and he remembered that he had a list of reasons not to get involved with Albus, curated over the past twelve years. He’d allowed an emotional impulse to override his brain. Death might be preferable to the inevitable disaster at the end of _any_ romantic entanglement – and Albus, Theseus felt sure, would be _particularly_ disastrous.

But the damage was done, now.

Theseus didn’t look back before saying, “Yeah, you too.”

He strode into the street, confident that Albus was behind him.

<><><>

Theseus hurt all over. What had happened? There had been a bright flash – too many spells. _Spell entanglement._ He'd heard horror stories, and seen the aftermath of such accidents once or twice himself. Hopefully everyone was still… intact and recognizably human. As long as no one had been casting any transfigurations, then no one should have been exposed to anything more exotic than a blast wave of the sort that a Muggle explosive might cause. He wasn't in more than an ordinary amount of 'thrown against a wall' pain - that had probably been the worst of it.

He was lying down, was he still in Diagon? Where was he? Theseus gently flexed a foot – it was bare. Bare feet, scratchy sheets, the smell of dittany… he was in St. Mungo’s. It was likely safe to reveal that he was conscious, then. He slowly opened his eyes. It was dark in his room, a single oil lamp on the bedside table providing the only illumination. 

He eased himself up to a half-seated position, stuffing a pillow behind his back. He was alone, but Newt’s coat was draped over the arm of a chair. A cup of tea, a newspaper, and Theseus' wand sat on the table beside it.

Theseus summoned his wand, and stuffed it under his pillow. Next he summoned the paper and turned up the flame on the lamp so that he could see it more clearly. The banner read:

#  **The Daily Prophet**  
**Special Evening Edition**  
**Battle on Diagon!**

  
Theseus sighed. As far as he knew, the fighting never escaped the building that housed _The Prophet’s_ offices. Typical hyperbole.

He scanned the paper quickly, looking for mentions of Gellert and Albus. There were several on the front page alone, but nothing that answered the question that concerned Theseus most: were they ok?

Theseus got caught up for a moment in the description of the opening moments of the morning’s events – the woman (apparently ‘Alexis Carrow’) coming in, immediately shooting an editor with the Killing curse, and saying, “That is for printing lies about Grindelwald!”

Theseus shook his head. Poor Gellert. After the Hammersmith debacle... Theseus was glad that Gellert had been there today, that they had been fighting together. Hopefully that would be enough to reassure him that Theseus was not going to blame him for this.

That had been quite a blast at the end. The fact that neither Gellert nor Albus was waiting in the room meant that one or both of them was hurt, too. Gellert, in particular, had a tendency to hover - and not just because he was adept at healing spells and didn't trust anyone else's skill so much as he trusted his own. Being _allowed_ to express his love - to touch, to gaze, to fuss, to simply _be welcomed in the presence of someone he loved_ felt like a gift to him. He knew what it was to have that privilege taken away, to live with the regret of having been more concerned about appearing vulnerable than taking advantage of every opportunity to care for the person he loved. So if he was not here, then he was either tending to Albus, or completely incapacitated in one way or another.

“Come on, you bloody quill hacks,” Theseus muttered impatiently, looking for a casualty list. “Prove your worth – tell me something…”

Oh, no.

Page three held the answer to why Gellert was not by his bedside, and it was – well, it was far better news than him being on a list of the known dead, but it was _not_ encouraging.

**Gellert Grindelwald Missing!**  
_Minutes before Aurors stormed the building, a protesting Gellert Grindelwald was stunned by known associate Vinda Rosier, and carried away from the scene. Mr. Grindelwald had been arguing with a Wizard whom he referred to as ‘Mr. Krall.’ Mr. Grindelwald insisted on staying and giving his statement to the Aurors, in spite of the other man advising him to flee. Miss Rosier apparently did not agree with Mr. Grindelwald's assessment that they had 'nothing to hide.'  
Some readers might be surprised to learn that Mr. Grindelwald expressed concern for..._

The door to the room opened, and Theseus looked up. It was Newt.

“You should not be reading that trash,” Newt scolded, taking the paper from him.

“ _You_ were reading it,” Theseus pointed out. He reached out his hand and summoned the paper back. Then he added. “You’re all right?”

“I am perfectly fine. I regret that I involved you and Dumbledore at all.”

“Albus! Is Albus ok?”

“He – “ Newt hesitated. “He is here in the hospital. He woke up a few hours ago. He was pinned beneath some furniture and a great deal of rubble from the ceiling. There was a lot of damage, but he is well on his way to mending. He – “ Newt paused again. “He was behaving oddly at first, but seems to be himself again.“

Newt was ok, Albus was going to be ok. That left Gellert, and Gellert was too smart and too powerful to be contained for long. Theseus needed to trust that Gellert would find his way back to him and Albus soon. He told himself that this might not be an altogether bad thing, Gellert being kidnapped. Gellert knew that Vinda was going to keep trying to drag him back into that old life, but he was having trouble letting her go, and it was going to take something this dramatic to separate the two of them.

“You did the right thing to call us, Newt.”

“I’m not sure that I did. Grindelwald, of all people, stopped the woman himself, before you’d even arrived, and according to the paper, she was the only person who killed anyone.“

‘Of all people.’ Newt’s antipathy towards Gellert frustrated Theseus. His brother could forgive any creature for being what it was, as long as it wasn’t a man. Theseus didn’t like keeping secrets from Newt, but he had been hiding the fact that Gellert had been living with him for eight months, now. And out of fairness to Gellert, Theseus hadn’t told Newt about Albus, either. It would not have been possible except that Newt was so busy with his animals that he visited rarely, and never unannounced.

“According to the paper? Does that mean – so you weren’t there for the whole skirmish? Albus found you and got you out?”

“Yes, yes. But as I said, I would have been fine in any – “

“Newt. Albus was just crushed under a ceiling and I am in a hospital bed myself. Please don’t say that we didn’t accomplish anything. Humour an injured man.”

Newt stared at Theseus for a moment. Then he tried, “According to one report, you heroically bathed a man who hexed you.”

Theseus barked a laugh. Leave it to Newt…

“I don’t suppose the paper has a guess about who these other people were who were hurling spells at me and Albus? This ‘Alexis Carrow.’ Were they with her?”

“The men you were fighting? They thought you were attacking Grindelwald.”

So, yes, they _were_ with her. Theseus remembered Newt’s Patronus saying that the newspaper offices were being attacked by ‘Grindelwald’s people.’ As if Gellert had ‘people’ anymore. What he had were crazy ex-associates and fans (also crazy – some crazier than others.) They probably did think of themselves as Gellert’s ‘people.’ Theseus was irritated, however, that any reasonable person might think of these idiots as somehow under Gellert’s control.

“Yes, attacking a Wizard when he was stopping a murderer. That is just the sort of thing –“

“The idea wasn’t entirely unjustified, Theseus! When you entered the building, you outright said that you were putting him under arrest!”

Theseus… did not remember that. It bothered him for a moment, but he quickly shook it off. Witnesses misremembered these sorts of details all the time.

But then he recalled a plan that he and Albus had cooked up one night when they were worrying about the sort of people that Gellert’s ideas attracted: if there were a public event that got out of control, Albus had suggested that Theseus could ‘arrest’ Gellert in order to bodily remove him and so keep him safe. At the time, Theseus had considered it an extreme measure, to be avoided if possible – Gellert would be humiliated and angry, and it would surely lead to an argument later.

In fact… now Theseus _did_ remember telling Gellert that he was under arrest that morning. What a mistake. And Theseus called _Gellert_ protective. Could he not have _waited_ to see what was happening before bellowing at his husband, before asserting his authority in front of a couple dozen people?

Theseus was ashamed now, remembering the look on Gellert’s face – the hurt and incredulity and _fury_. ‘It was a fucking public service!’ he had protested, throwing in Theseus’ face the fact that he and Albus were there as vigilantes too – that _no one_ there could claim to be acting on any authority other than their own convictions in the moment.

_But how had Gellert known to be there?_

Theseus could puzzle over that later, after Newt had left.

“Sometimes, a public figure like Ge- Grindelwald escalates a tense moment simply by appearing –“

“He ‘escalated the moment,’ all right,” Newt interrupted. “People began firing spells at him the minute he entered the room.”

Theseus had not known that. How awful that must have been for Gellert. He had been so demonized by his fellow Wizards. And all the time he was making such an effort –

“I’m surprised that no one else was hurt,” Newt continued. “It was bad enough that he collected all of their wands so that they could not defend themselves – “

Suddenly, a photo Theseus had glimpsed in the paper made more sense.

“Did he abscond with the wand of some ‘innocent’ Wizard who had cursed him without reason and without warning? Or –“ Theseus pointed to a photo on the back page with more than a dozen wands lined up neatly on a desktop, “did he instead leave every wand behind in the newspaper office for their owners to retrieve after the chaos had lifted?”

“Without warning? He couldn’t have been expecting a warm welcome, entering a room where one of his own followers had already _killed_ multiple people.”

“Come on, Newt. He’s just a rabble-rouser. Sure, the stuff he writes can sound pretty extreme, but – “

“A _rabble-rouser?_ You wouldn’t say he’s – I don’t know… a _terrorist?_ ”

Theseus winced. “Listen, I know you don’t – let’s just – agree to disagree about Grindelwald.”

“Agree to disagree.” Newt was repeating Theseus’ words in that incredulous tone with an irritating frequency.

“Yes! You’re familiar with the concept, surely. Two people who respect and care for one another find that they have a difference of opinion. So rather than –“

“I cannot simply – Have you forgotten the War altogether, Theseus?”

Theseus’ every sense sharpened, his magic pulsing just under his skin itching to be released.

“I can assure you, Newt,” Theseus said in a dangerously quiet voice, “that I remember the War perfectly well. I tolerate a great deal from you, but don’t you _dare_ suggest that I could _forget_ what I saw there.” What he had _done_ there. What had been _lost_ there.

“Theseus –“

“How about _you_ , Newt? Do _you_ remember the War? Or have you forgotten the smell of dragon corpses burning?”

“Enough, Theseus. That was – “ Newt made a choking sound, and tears began streaming down his face. Fuck. Theseus couldn’t even claim not to have done that on purpose.

“I’m sorry, Newt. I – “

“I was trying to assess _spell damage_ , Thee. Grindelwald _did something_ to Albus. He was asking about ‘Gellert’ as if he knew him – as if he was worried about his well-being. He wanted to ‘take you home’ – Albus thinks he lives with you. He – “

This was not the way that he had intended for Newt to find out, but he wasn't going to allow his brother to talk about his husband like he was _crazy_ when in fact he was being perfectly reasonable. If a little more open with their personal business than Theseus would have liked. But he could make allowances - Albus had a lot less experience with battle type situations - he was sure to be a little less contained than usual at the moment.

“He _does_ live with me, Newt. Or – whenever he can get away from Hogwarts, he does.”

Theseus wanted to take Albus home, too. Hopefully they would let him see Albus soon.

Newt stared at Theseus in disbelief. “Isn’t that a bit – sudden? You’ve not been speaking to one another for that long. I thought he annoyed you. That you didn’t want to have to spend more than half an hour with him if you didn’t have to. The way you treated him at mother’s dinner party!”

Theseus remembered that night well. It was November – the first time he had had to interact with Albus in public since Albus and Gellert had reconciled, since Albus had joined them in bed. It had been awkward, having to sit next to Albus and act as if they were barely acquainted with one another. Theseus had imagined that they could use the occasion to lay the groundwork for a public narrative about their 'renewed friendship' – but he and Albus had neglected to discuss it beforehand, and so Albus had defaulted to their old way of interacting, taking a professor-y tone that felt distancing to Theseus. It had annoyed him, and he had snarked at Albus throughout dinner, and then made an excuse to leave the moment the dessert dishes were cleared.

“You mustn’t think that I don’t like the idea _in general_ – I always thought that the two of you were being stupidly stubborn about the whole thing. Leaving Britain was melodramatic of you, honestly – but shouldn’t you – take some more time to get to know one another before simply – jumping into sharing a – umm – house?”

Theseus couldn’t help but huff a laugh at Newt stopping short of saying, “bed.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll do you a deal. When you start consulting me about what creatures you should keep in your basement, I’ll start consulting you about what men I take into my bed.”

Newt’s jaw tensed and he stared at the floor before lifting up his head only enough to look at Theseus’ shoulder. “Men,” Newt echoed. “Does Albus know that you are not exclusive?”

Theseus supressed a smile, thinking about an evening the week before when Albus had demonstrated his enthusiasm for not being the only man in Theseus' bed. But it was inaccurate to say that he and Albus were not exclusive – they were exclusive to one another _and Gellert_.

“I never said that Albus and I are ‘not exclusive.’ I was just saying that, as a general principle, I don’t think either you or I are actually interested in me coming to you for approval any time I take on a new sexual partner.”

“So, drawing on your _extensive knowledge_ of Albus Dumbledore, would you say that it is normal for him to be worried about the well-being of Gellert Grindelwald?”

Theseus opted to ignore the sarcasm. Newt was probably hurt that he was only learning about Theseus’ relationship with Albus now. He decided to take the question at face value and considered what would be least revealing to say.

“They knew one another when they were kids. Teenagers. That’s – not public knowledge, ok? But – Albus got knocked out, so, like me, he doesn’t have any first-hand knowledge of how the fight ended. And Grindelwald was fighting on our side today, in a room where there was at least one person tossing around Avadas… so, yeah. You’d be worried if Leta had been in there, right? And you’ve not seen _her_ in nine years.”

Newt was quiet. The silence stretched on uncomfortably, but Theseus had learned it was better to wait for his brother than to push him. Finally, Newt opened his mouth to ask, “The power station?”

“The power station?” Theseus echoed. Was Newt still testing his memory? He had established that Theseus remembered the War, so he was moving onto more recent events? “Yes, I remember the duel in Hammersmith as well. And coming to you to patch up my back. My memory is _fine_ , Newt. You can stop worrying.”

“You fought Grindelwald’s people at the –“

Still harping on about Gellert! Theseus reminded himself that he did not want to make Newt cry again, no matter how bull-headed he was being. He needed to try to stay calm.

“There’s no evidence that Grindelwald knew about that attempted act of sabotage,” Theseus said. “I fought with a former associate of Grindelwald’s and three other individuals who may have unfortunately been influenced by Grindelwald’s speeches and writing, although there is little way of knowing.”

“ _No evidence that he knew?!_ That is _not_ what you were saying the day of the attack.”

  
No, Theseus had been quite angry. There was no telling what he had said to Newt that day. After Theseus had returned home from Newt’s, he had found Gellert at home, already drunk at two in the afternoon. It was obvious that he knew - that Albus had come looking for Theseus at the house before going on to Newt's and had shared his anxious speculations with Gellert.

'You're hurt. Show me.'

Theseus, angry about what could have happened if he had not learned of the attack, and jealous that his injury meant that _he_ couldn’t be drunk for that confrontation himself, had not had any patience for managing _Gellert’s_ emotions.

'Vinda was there. She wasn't the one who sliced me, so that's something, at least. But -'

'Is this why you went to your brother's house to be healed, instead of to me, even though I have more experience?'

'He has plenty of experience.'

'NOT ON PEOPLE!' Gellert had roared. 'You're _hurt_ , and I have to find out _third hand_ from Albus, whom you also did not tell. No. _Krall_ told him. You went to Newt _not_ because he was available, _not_ because he has experience, but because _I cannot go there_. You were _punishing_ me. And why? Because of _Vinda_?'

‘I wasn't punishing you. I was _avoiding_ you. I didn't want to - there were four people there - Vinda _and_ three others, all inspired by _your speeches_. They were going to blow up a power station, Gellert. This has gone on for too long. You need to outright condemn the use of violence by the people who –‘

‘Oh? Like _you_ condemn the use of violence by your _Ministry_? We cannot all be such sweet innocent fluffy bunnies as yourself! Nothing of note on _your_ wand but innocuous furniture refinishing spells and the like! Yes! It is my _words_ that are a problem!’

Gellert had meant the furniture stripping spell. One night, after too many whiskeys, Theseus had confessed to having discovered that that spell was particularly effective at getting the most unwilling prisoners to talk when used on the soles of their feet. Not that he'd resorted to torture since the War, which Gellert _also_ knew.

‘I am _one person_ , Gellert. And I don’t – I'm not - don't turn this around. Your _ideas_ are _dangerous_. You need to think about what you are actually hoping to achieve and direct your anger at the right people. If you think that _Muggle factory workers_ are really who is to blame for the ‘subjugation of the Wizarding world,’ then _by all means_ , let’s not cry over _killing a few hundred_ of them –‘

‘At least I _have_ ideas,’ Gellert had countered. ‘Rather than just tearing apart whomever I’m pointed at.’

They had continued on in that vein for a long time, each hurt, each poking at the other's most tender spots, each convinced that the other had been changed less by their post-War conversations than they had previously thought.

Finally, Theseus had had enough and had gone to 'take a nap.' Gellert had shouted after him but hadn't followed. An hour later, Theseus had emerged and Gellert had warily apologized, and Theseus had apologized back, and they had ended by making love in the way that they did when they were both in desperate need of reassurance. Gellert had fallen asleep, and Theseus had held him, remembering all of the reasons that he loved the man, and reminding himself of how terrifyingly easy he was to hurt.

Albus hadn't come around until the following evening. Theseus had missed him, had wanted him there with them when they went to bed that night, but Albus had been on curfew enforcement duty. He had confessed later that he could have traded with Galatea, but was worried that he would 'make matters worse.' Which had woken Theseus to just how insecure Albus felt about his place in the relationship. Gellert claimed later, 'I thought you knew.'

At the time, it had been an ugly mess, but the argument and the aftermath had inspired all three of them to loosen their holds on their respective positions. Gellert had not published anything in two months, trying to work out a new approach. Theseus had begun thinking more deeply about his motivations for working for the DMLE. And Albus had been learning how to give them more space to work out their individual positions for themselves without offering his opinions of their respective vocations unasked for (or at least not quite so frequently), while at the same time being physically present more often. Still not as often as Theseus wanted, but Albus' job required him to stay at Hogwarts overnight more often than not.

  
“I can assure you that if Travers had anything on Grindelwald, he would have brought the Wizard in by now.”

“You always say that Travers wouldn’t know a smuggler if they shoved a stolen wand up his arse and sailed him across the Channel.”

Theseus ached with held in laughter. He _did_ say that, but he had never heard Newt repeat it.

“So,” Newt continued, “I would not have thought that you would consider _Travers’_ inaction to be a measure of whether Grindelwald could reasonably be considered a terrorist – and that is what you called him, Thee. _You_ called Grindelwald a terrorist.”

He probably _had_ done. What a miserable day that had been. Theseus was grateful he had not met Gellert until after the War – his nineteen-year old self never would have managed to keep a relationship alive through an argument like that one. But Gellert was worth it. And things were much better between them now – or had been until Theseus had pointed his wand at him and placed him ‘under arrest.’ What had possessed him to do that? He hoped that Gellert got home soon. Theseus needed to give his husband an apology. And after that, he needed the consolation of Gellert’s body pressing his body into the bed.

Merlin. Theseus hoped that he was right that Vinda wouldn’t hurt Gellert too badly, that he would get away from her easily and come home.

“Yes, well, whatever I said two months ago, _this morning_ that supposed ‘terrorist’ stopped someone who was attacking a newspaper office, without himself killing _anyone_.”

“I’m just wanting to be sure that you remember –“

Theseus closed his eyes and slumped back onto his pillow with a groan. “If I swear to you that I remember that the man is a plague on the Wizarding world, and a great bloody nuisance to myself, will you give it a rest?”

There was such a long silence that Theseus felt compelled to open his eyes again. Newt was looking at him as if he were both a puzzle and a disappointment. “I am letting this go only because I have creatures to feed. But I’ll be back here in the morning to check on you.”

“They think I’m not ready to go home yet?”

“I imagine they’ll want to… keep you under observation,” Newt said hesitantly. “Just – to be certain that you’re – that everything is as it should be.” Newt was edging towards the door, the bastard. He knew something, and he was escaping. “I know you hate it here, but –“ Newt opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and turned his head to offer a final reassurance. “It won’t be long. You’re awake now – that’s a very good sign.”

And then he was gone.

During the conversation, Theseus had been making a list of things to think about after Newt had left, but now he couldn’t remember a single one of them. He was just too tired. ‘It must be the spell damage,’ he thought as he drifted back to sleep.

<><><>

The sound of a door opening awakened Theseus. He had no idea what time it was, but he couldn’t have been asleep very long – Newt would have told someone on his way out that Theseus was awake, and that meant that a Healer would be on their way shortly to explain what was happening and to prod Theseus and ask questions.

But the person at the door was not a Healer after all. Nor was it a Mediwitch, nor an elf with a dinner tray, nor an Auror full of questions as to what Theseus had been doing at _The Daily Prophet_ during working hours, without having notified any of his colleagues. It was Albus. Albus in navy blue silk pyjamas patterned with a riot of dahlias and clematis in every colour, and with bees happily buzzing from flower to flower. It was quite a contrast to the hospital-issued solid pale pink nightshirt that Theseus was wearing, and which seemed designed to look bad on anyone.

“Albus!” Theseus cried happily. “Why have I never seen –“

“Shhh!” Albus admonished as he closed the door. “They told me I couldn’t leave my room.”

Theseus pushed himself up into a sitting position and watched Albus shuffle gingerly towards the bed.

“And yet somehow, here you are,” Theseus noted. “How did you manage to make it through the halls unnoticed wearing those pyjamas?”

It didn’t require an answer, and Albus didn’t offer one, but he smiled, seemingly pleased that Theseus had noticed his pyjamas, as if it would have been possible not to.

“You are walking like you injured your back.”

Albus stopped walking before opening his mouth to answer, as if he could not concentrate both on making his body move and expressing himself at the same time. “Back, foot, shoulder – all of it. Apparently, I hit the front wall pretty hard, and then some furniture landed on me.”

“As well as the ceiling. Newt told me. You’re still mending, Albus. You should be in bed.”

“Are you offering?” Albus asked with a sly smile.

“Always,” Theseus answered, pulling back his sheet and blanket in invitation. Albus slid into bed beside him, laying his head in Theseus’ lap. Theseus stroked Albus’ hair. He loved Albus so much it ached. “Gods, it’s good to see you. Newt told me you were all right, but –“

“Well, I’m glad someone told _you_ something. They gave me _no choice_ but to sneak out of my room! No one would tell me how you were doing – ‘patient confidentiality’ they said. I hate that nobody knows about us.“

Yes, it was a terrible inconvenience for no one to know that the three of them were married. If only it weren't for the small disincentive of _being sent to Azkaban for five to ten years -_ and being released with the understanding that Azkaban would be happy to take them back if they were found 're-offending.'

“News or no news, you would have come looking for me anyway, now that you are well enough to move,” Theseus pointed out.

Albus ignored this, and continued, “At least ‘patient confidentiality’ told me that you were a patient and not –“ Albus broke off. “No one will tell me – I tried to ask about Gellert, but – and he's not here with you - I had hoped - What’s _happened_ to him, Theseus? Why isn’t he _here?_ With us?”

“Oh! No one even gave you a newspaper? Oh, Albus,” Theseus could not imagine. Albus didn’t worry so much as Gellert did, but he worried far more than Theseus, and he had been awake longer, with nothing but speculation. “Gellert is fine. Or – he will be fine.”

“How badly was he injured?”

“No – he’s – “ Theseus hesitated. Albus was going to overreact. Albus hated Vinda, and didn’t understand how Gellert could still be friends with her, even as his ideas of how to change the world were changing and hers weren’t. Theseus, for his part, knew how hard it was to let go of someone who had been at your right hand for a decade, even after rifts had been exposed.

‘You wouldn’t just turn your back on Galatea,’ Theseus had tried explaining.  
‘Galatea has not blown up any Muggle factories.’  
Theseus, who was privy to a great deal of classified material regarding the War, had been tempted at that time to concede the point by way of listing all of the things that Galatea _had_ blown up. But he resisted, as a matter of national security.

There was no way to soften the blow. “Vinda’s kidnapped him.”

_“Kidnapped him?!”_

Theseus took the newspaper off of the side table and handed it to Albus. Albus sat up, shoulder to shoulder with Theseus, and held the paper out at arm’s length.

“You left your glasses in your room?” Theseus laughed.

“Don’t make fun! It will not be long before you need reading glasses yourself!”

Theseus took the paper from Albus’ hands. “Very well, I’ll read it to you.”

But before Theseus could turn to the appropriate page, the door opened. A Mediwitch stepped into the room.

“Mr. Dumbledore! You are _not_ supposed to be moving about while the potions are working.”

“I’m not ‘moving about,’” Albus corrected her. “I’m in bed!”

“Not your own bed."

Theseus snorted at the Mediwitch's seeming exasperation with Albus' pedantry.

She continued unhindered, "Just because you are not moving now! You are not meant to be moving about _even when I am not looking_. I’ll go get an assistant to help me carry you back to –“

“Can’t he just stay here?” Theseus asked. “You could bring in an extra bed for him? It’s comforting to have a friend – “

“Mr. Scamander –“

“Theseus,” Theseus interrupted with a flirty smile.

“ _Mr._ Scamander,” the Mediwitch repeated firmly. “There are patient confidentiality –“

“Which I happily waive my rights to. Dumbledore?”

“Yes, me too. Theseus is one of my oldest friends.”

“ _Flamel_ is one of your oldest friends. _I_ am younger than you are.”

Theseus had hoped that the Witch's impatience was just for show - that they were playing a game and she would crack any moment - but the Witch was neither charmed nor entertained by their banter, instead looking even more stern than she had before. Well, Theseus could be stern too, if that was what was called for.

“Gentlemen. I had hoped not to have to say anything, but one of your Aurors asked me to keep you separated, so that your statements –“

“Which Auror?” Theseus asked quickly.

“I really could not –“

“You really could.”

“He was – tall?” She answered uncertainly, folding easily under this slight increase in pressure. Interesting. Her demeanor must be a pre-emptive defence mechanism. “And – uh – “

“Did they separate all of the journalists who were present for the skirmish at _The Daily Prophet_?”

“I’m not sure –“

“No. In fact, the paper has published several first-hand accounts of the day for all the world to read,” Theseus said, waving the newspaper. “Furthermore, my brother was also a witness, and _he_ was in here earlier this evening.”

“I – I’m not –“

“I can assure you that Auror ‘He-was-tall’ was operating beyond his authority in making that request.” Or, more to the point, he had either been a complete idiot, or lying as to the real reason why he and Albus were being kept apart from one another. It had nothing to do with their ‘statements.’

“So,” Theseus continued, “you are going to tell me –“

“You’re scaring her,” Albus interrupted. “Calm down, and stop using your Auror voice.”

Scaring her had been the _point_. Theseus was perfectly calm - but someone was trying to keep him and Albus separated, and it was important to figure out why. And while it was probably the case that Theseus would not get much more out of this Mediwitch regarding the Auror who had spoken to her, she might have more information about what it would take for them to be released. But now that Albus had interrupted his flow, he might as well take a moment and think about next steps.

There was only one Auror who outranked Theseus – the Head Auror – and she was not an inch above five feet tall. Unless the Mediwitch meant Travers. It was possible he’d involved himself in the case. The man was a micro-manager, and he _hated_ Albus – almost as much as he hated Gellert.

But it was also possible that one of Theseus’ own men was investigating the events of the day – Echols, in particular, was _very_ tall, and was always looking to tie one crime or another to Gellert. Or Internal Affairs might be investigating Theseus for acting outside of official channels on work time – Theseus was sure to be put on leave, at best. A demotion was not out of the question. But bringing charges would be extreme - unless it was retaliation for his own not very popular attempts to rein in the Aurors in his division - to keep them following protocol, rather than simply acting on their own authority without oversight. Which was exactly what he had done himself.

Newt had said that Theseus was meant to stay in the hospital overnight ‘for observation,’ even though he was feeling fine. Theseus was beginning to feel that Gellert wasn’t the only one of them being held against their will. And if the hospital staff and the someone (or more than one someone) at the DMLE were together in wanting to keep Theseus and Albus apart… no one with a rank below 'Healer' was likely to have the answers Theseus wanted. It was time to cut this Witch loose.

“I am surprised that Albus is still at St. Mungo’s at all, rather than having checked himself out against orders, like the intractable patient that he is,“ Theseus said, hoping to alert Albus to his change in strategy.

Albus hit Theseus in the thigh with the back of his hand in retaliation for this characterization. Which made Theseus want to kiss him as a reassurance, but they had an audience, and Theseus had a job to do. So instead, he lifted up his wand and cast a Confundus.

The MediWitch stared at the wall above the bed blankly, then turned and opened the door.

“My sincere apologies, Auror Scamander,” she called over her shoulder. As the door closed behind her, Theseus heard her saying, “He wasn’t in there, either. Are we sure the Professor didn’t just bunk off?”

“Did you just – “

“Confund a civilian?”

“Just to keep me in bed with you?”

Well – yes. And also because she had nothing more to tell them, and Theseus was beginning to think that they were running out of time to stage an escape and find their other husband. But yes, he was not ready to surrender Albus just yet, even though it was a problem that his clothes and his -

“I love you so much,” Albus said, pressing his lips to Theseus’. The kiss quickly deepened. Theseus slid down into the bed. Albus shifted so that he was lying on top of Theseus and started rocking against him.

“Your back, Albus – “

“I am not hurting too badly to –“

Albus thrust against Theseus by way of illustration, and Theseus groaned. Sweet Merlin. The man was undeterrable. But Theseus was not going to be lured into fucking his husband behind an unlockable door in St. Mungo’s, especially when he was expecting an Auror to come looking for him any minute.

“You are going to get us arrested. Snuggling, you’re just keeping me company. Make me come, and we’re in Azkaban.”

“Someone was _just here_. No one is going to come in for _at least_ another twenty minutes,” Albus insisted, reaching under Theseus’ nightshirt and digging his fingers into Theseus’ hip, causing him to buck up against Albus reflexively.

“Nngh! Gods! You’re probably right, you horrible man. But can you imagine what Gellert will do to us if we get arrested?”

“I’d like to see someone try,” Albus growled.

“Yes, well,” Theseus countered, “ _I_ wouldn’t. If I ever leave Britain again, I'd like for it to be because we chose to go, rather than because we were required to flee under an assumed identity. I can’t think of a single government in the world that would be sympathetic to two men who were caught fucking in the hospital.”

Albus rolled off of him and they lay side by side in the hospital bed, facing one another.

“Memory charms would probably be overkill for this situation?”

Even though he knew that Albus had given up on persuading him - and was likely even joking about the memory charms - it was tempting, for a moment. Thanks to Albus' work schedule, they had developed the habit of taking advantage of whatever scrap of time allowed to them. And Albus’ silk-clad arse had felt so good under Theseus’ hand. But a quick roll in a tiny hospital bed was not their only option.

“Rather than settle for fifteen minutes now, with the risk of being interrupted, I propose that we take ourselves and those outstanding pyjamas of yours home, where we can take as long as we want with one another, knowing that no one is going to interrupt us.”

Except possibly Gellert, who would have every interest in them continuing.

“There’s something else,” Albus pointed out. “You are not wanting to leave only because the sex is better at home.”

“No, you're right. Though the sex _is_ better at home."

"Granted."

"It's the way they are trying to keep us separated... And Newt was behaving oddly, too… I’m not sure, but I think that I might be under arrest?”

Albus hummed thoughtfully. "You still have your wand."

That was an excellent point. And yet - "And if I didn't, I would have become immediately suspicious. No, even if I were under arrest, if they were wanting me to not be aware of the fact, they would leave me my wand."

“Well. It _was_ risky, leaving work the way you did. You’ve been spoiled by always getting away with things. You were bound to get caught one day.”

Theseus laughed. “Oh, Merlin. Do not tell me that I am being called out on competency-based delusions of exceptionalism by _Albus Fucking Dumbledore_.”

“I never claimed that you and I have nothing in common,” Albus answered, “as long as we are on the topic of your _delusions_.”

“Gods, I love you.” Theseus pulled Albus tightly to him and kissed him. Albus kissed back enthusiastically for a bit, but soon started laughing and pushed Theseus away.

“You were trying to get us to stop, I thought?”

“Yeah, but – the trouble is you continue to be in kissing distance.”

Theseus pushed himself up and got out of bed. He was gratified to note that walking was not difficult. Being too weak or in too much pain to move around would have complicated their escape. He made his way towards the one cabinet in the room – it was time to get dressed and make plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - now that we have seen all three of them thinking that they are married, this seems the right place to clarify: while they all have some *new* memories, none of them have had complete memory wipes. Gellert has lost significantly more memories than the other two (poor guy was Avada'd - if it hadn't been for Albus' spell, he'd be dead - as it was, Magic worked with the spell by... letting some things die.) But they all three remember an awful lot of what has 'really been happening' over the past 18 months or so that they are rewriting.  
> In this chapter, we are seeing Theseus’ brain beginning to work with the memories it has (both the 'true' memories and a few new 'implanted' memories that _feel just as true_ ) and trying to create a story that makes sense – in the same way that we, upon waking in the morning, take a jumble of sometimes unrelated images from our dream the night before, and try to turn it into a coherent narrative.  
> In the process, some even newer memories are getting formed on an ad hoc basis to fill in the resulting gaps (there was a Confundus in the mix of those six entangled spells, after all, and Magic is working her 'best possible outcome' on that entanglement, as well as on the Avada that hit Gellert, which would not have been stopped by a shield spell even if his had not already been torn up by the explosion.)  
> The fact is – Theseus is not only not married to Gellert and Albus, but he has never had sex with either of them, he is not living with either of them, and he and Gellert have never even spoken to one another (aside from that one time that Gellert was pretending to be a visiting dignitary, but Theseus never learned that that was Gellert.) There’s a lot of evidence running counter to the notion that they are married, and in order to account for that… the narratives they each come up with are going to include angst, accusations, insecurities, and so on. Heads up.  
> 


	7. Albus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trigger warnings are in the end notes, because spoilers
> 
> The next chapter after this one would ordinarily be from Gellert’s POV, but I’m considering interrupting the sequence to give us Krall’s POV  
> Had thought about an Auror POV, but I’m thinking that would fit better after a little more time has passed
> 
> UPDATE 9 March 2021:  
> I rewrote a couple of paragraphs in order to make the apparition more consistent

10 May 1920

Albus was grateful that he had at least thought to bring his _wand_ with him when he had gone to Theseus’ room. What had he been thinking, leaving his things behind?

‘You were thinking that you wanted to see Theseus.’

Yes, _and_ he had _not_ been thinking that he would be unable to return to his room. Albus’ natural inclination, given the suspicious behaviour that Theseus was cataloguing in Newt and the hospital staff (and the mysterious tall Auror), would have been to behave as if he in fact suspected _nothing_ , maybe even spend the night being a 'good patient' in order to buy some time to collect more data. He was fairly certain that Theseus ordinarily would have agreed with him, but right now, when his husband was so convinced that the noose was tightening around them more with each passing minute, Albus knew better than to suggest it.

Theseus’ baseline caution had rapidly escalated to a conviction that they were under siege, and Albus was sorry to say that he had contributed to it, without fully understanding how low Theseus’ tolerance for uncertainty was. The War had changed him. Albus had known that, but he also knew that it was something that they were not allowed to speak of, and he had honestly avoided thinking about it himself as much as possible.

And so, without a thought for the consequences, Albus had asked Theseus, “Do you imagine that they will be watching the house? You said that you think you might be under arrest. Your protections on our place are impressive, but we do have to _get inside_ before they are much good to us. What is your plan for – ”

“You are right Albus,” Theseus had said, turning around to face him. “We must not go home.”

Theseus had said several more things, but Albus had not caught any of them, not so much astonished by the categorical declaration (though that would certainly hit him later) as he was distracted by the view. Thanks to Albus’ recent attentions, Theseus had been fully erect – and was exposed to Albus’ gaze, having taken off his nightshirt and not yet put on any of his own clothing. Albus had had no room for any thought aside from his need to be deliciously stretched and filled by that long, straight, indecently thick cock. It was _magnificent_. They had clearly not had sex that morning, because if they had, Albus would still be aching now, twelve hours later. Unless he had performed some sort of healing charm. Though why would he have, _when he could still be aching?_

Instead, he had woken in his bed at school alone that morning – as he did all too often. _Why_ did he have a job, again? Why was he not just in the company of that mesmerising cock _at all times?_

Not that Theseus was reducible to one organ. He was a caring, intelligent, brave man, with an intense gaze and a too-rare luminous smile. _But that cock…_

Theseus had been a little annoyed when he had noticed that Albus was not listening to him, but just staring at him with his mouth hanging open, and he had remarked that Albus was acting as if he had never seen him naked before. Albus had answered that Theseus was gorgeous, and that his cock was _unbelievably_ gorgeous, and that Albus would never be used to the sight of it in a hundred years, and so Theseus had better get used to Albus not getting used to it.

“In fact,” Albus had suggested, “you should possibly consider duelling naked. Your opponents would just gaze on you in amazement, and forget what their purpose had been.”

“Duelling anyone but you and Gellert is not enough of a turn-on for that to matter,” Theseus had answered, as if actually considering the relative tactical advantages of nude duelling. “I look pretty average when I’m not hard.”

“ _Nothing_ about you is _average_ ,” Albus had insisted. Theseus, who was already dressed by this time (Theseus thought _he_ was annoyed? What was _truly_ annoying was how quickly that man could dress when he was on a mission), had come over and kissed Albus on the forehead in answer. That had been his last concession to physical intimacy. Theseus was going to war and apparently would not be making any more time for Albus’ newlywed infatuation.

Albus was regretting the distraction himself, at the moment. His daydreaming had kept him unaware for a time of just how far around the bend he had sent Theseus with his question about going home. By the time he had noticed what was happening, Theseus had completed a thorough check of the room and announced with some relief that none of the standard DMLE listening devices or spells had been applied. Which Albus would have found odd (wouldn't they want to monitor Theseus if he were under arrest?) if he had had a moment to contemplate it. Instead, Theseus had rapidly moved on to an analysis of the layout of the fourth floor, including where he would position Aurors if he were trying to ensure that no one moved off the floor unnoticed, and then, without further preamble, he had told Albus which self-transfigurations he wanted him to perform. If there had been an opportunity to check Theseus' burgeoning paranoia, Albus had missed it, and now he was little more than a passenger on Theseus’ runaway train of thought.

Though Albus had to admit - he was impressed by how quickly Theseus had gone from 'I think I'm under arrest' to having a plan (with several contingencies outlined) for them to confidently walk pass any Aurors undetected and simply exit the hospital through the main entrance. It had been less than ten minutes (including the three minutes or so of kissing), and already Theseus was moving on to 'tying up a few loose ends.'

“What did you leave behind? Is there _anything_ in your hospital room that will be a problem if it is collected as evidence?”

Albus was much more concerned about his quarters at Hogwarts being searched, if it came to that. And he was sure that Travers would argue that the two them disappearing gave the DMLE cause to do so. Albus thought that he had hidden everything of interest relatively well, but that did not mean that he wanted all of his personal effects rifled through and left disorganized.

How long was Theseus expecting them to be on the run? Albus wanted to think that this was an overreaction – that there was no way that Theseus was going to be put under arrest, much less taken to a holding cell or, Merlin forbid, Azkaban. But it was certainly not outside the realm of the possible. And if they left now, _before_ being told that Theseus was under arrest, then the Wizengamot would have no grounds on which to convict them as fugitives. It was not against the law to be a bad patient.

Not that they might not break some other laws incidentally. Had done already.

But that was neither here nor there. Theseus wanted to leave, and so they were leaving. And he had essentially bribed Albus with sex, which he was _not_ above taking Theseus up on. Really, what was refiling some manuscripts when compared to ‘taking as long as they wanted with one another?’ Wasn’t that what Theseus had said? Speaking of laws they were in the habit of breaking. Assuming that Theseus had a single brain cell left for sex when they got - wherever it was they were going. Not home, apparently.

No, the prospects for sex did not look good. Theseus' thoughts were all arraying themselves for battle.

“Nothing of consequence to anyone but me, really. Clothes, shoes, glasses…”

“Anything in your pockets?”

Almost always. Notes, candy, a piece of string, a pebble, a pocket watch – but _never_ when going into a duel. Albus _always_ emptied his pockets before duelling. He had even left his glasses behind. He only had the glasses here because Merrythought, who knew this habit of Albus’, had sent them to the hospital via one of the Hogwarts elves, along with his pyjamas. And a book – several short treatises of Paracelsus’, bound together into one volume. Perhaps she had thought that Albus was going to have a boring convalescence.

“No, but there’s a book. 16th century German medical treatises."

Albus thought it prudent not to mention that one of those treatises was on the subject of difficult to detect poisons, poisons without antidotes, and the principles of devising new poisons. No need to worry Theseus over that - he wasn't sure who, if anyone, in the Auror department would be able to decipher the handwriting, not to mention being able to read not only German, but nearly 400 year old German. And if need be... Albus had experience defending the difference between academic inquiry and criminal intent to overzealous Aurors.

"No personal notes in it, but I would be very sorry to lose it. It is one of a kind. Handwritten and handbound. I've been meaning to translate it. A number of them are, as far as I know, the only remaining copies of some truly -”

“It should be safe,” Theseus interrupted. “We’ll get it back. So, none of your little devices?”

“No. Anything that I can use could just as easily be used against me, so – no.”

Theseus grinned, “The wages of having spent the summer duelling Gellert Grindelwald when you were seventeen. That man is a devil and a half.”

That was _exactly_ where that habit had come from. One of Gellert’s signature moves was to turn whatever his opponent brought to the duel against them. He had once blinded Albus with his own handkerchief. It hadn’t taken him more than fifteen seconds to release himself, but by then Gellert had disappeared, flanking him. Albus had never lost a duel in his life before that day. It had been sufficiently humiliating that he had not returned to Bathilda’s for three days – until he was convinced that he could beat Gellert the next time.

Albus had ended the next duel with an Incarcerous – one of the spells that he had invented during that time apart. Gellert, who had never lost a duel before, either, had been shocked speechless. When Albus had released him, Gellert had demanded that Albus teach him the spell – and when Gellert had successfully cast it on him in turn… Albus _still_ got off to the thought, sometimes, of Gellert straddling him, pinning his shoulders, leaning close and whispering, ‘now I can do whatever I want with you.’

In his fantasies, what happened next diverged strongly from reality. On _that_ day, Albus hadn’t been able to untie himself, and ‘whatever Gellert wanted’ had turned out not to be erotic _at all_. He had sealed his mouth over Albus’ nose and exhaled, which was an obnoxious sensation, and then he had stood up and cast the counter charm. Two more days would pass before they would even kiss one another for the first time.

When he was younger, Albus had liked to imagine what would have happened if he had not been trapped, if he could have countered the charm wandlessly himself. In that moment before the nose trick, Albus had been so wild with desire at Gellert’s nearness and his words that, given the opportunity, he would have thrown off the ropes, flipped Gellert over and made short work of his clothes, and then taken his time tasting every blessed inch of him. And when he had decided that Gellert had been moaning for him long enough, Albus would have ridden his cock until they both passed out from coming harder than they ever had before. Assuming Gellert would have gone along with all that so early. He almost certainly would have done – he had been game for anything in those days.

It had not occurred to Albus until years later that, all things considered, it was probably a _good_ thing that they hadn’t fucked within the first eight days of knowing one another. The two of them had still not discussed it, but Albus was relatively certain now that Gellert had not done more than kiss a boy or two before coming to Godric’s Hollow. If you had asked Albus that summer, though, he would have asserted that he hadn’t been Gellert’s first anything, much less his first _everything_. It upset Albus a little that he hadn't known, which was probably why he had not brought it up. He wasn't sure why Gellert hadn't said anything.

Sex with Gellert was different now - more often than not, if they were trying something for the first time, Gellert was the one suggesting it. Albus liked that. Now, when he re-imagined that moment, it was an older, more experienced Gellert who was saying those words to him - a Gellert who knew _exactly_ what to do with a man who was completely at his mercy.

Not that Albus was quite ready for Gellert to tie him up in real life. Not yet. But he enjoyed imagining what Gellert might do next if Albus were to allow it.

Albus returned his attention to the present moment, to Theseus – who was already back to frowning and pacing. Worrying over the problem of how to get free from the hospital, still. Probably. Or about how to free Gellert, perhaps? Because Theseus still hadn’t said what had happened to him. Only that he had been kidnapped _by Vinda!_ Merlin knew what that vicious and untrustworthy Witch would do to him. Had already done to him!

Theseus had said that Gellert was going to be fine, but how could he say that? Had he _seen it happen?_ Had Theseus been conscious at the end of the duel? He _couldn’t_ have been – he would not have allowed for Gellert to be taken if he had been awake for it. Theseus had been admitted to the hospital, too – though he was not moving as if he were injured – not like Albus was. What were his injuries? Did Theseus even _know?_ Had he spoken to a Healer?

“Theseus. Theseus, stop. We haven’t – I don’t know anything about… about _anything_.”

“Not here, Albus. We’re on borrowed time as it is. It’s time to go. We can talk when we’re free.”

Albus did _not_ like not being told things. But if Theseus was right – if an Auror could come into the room any second and separate them – then talking later was better than the likelihood of not getting to talk at all.

There was only one small problem.

“Theseus, I hate to suggest that you have missed anything. It seems a very thorough plan. But you do remember that I am not particularly well suited to walking at any reasonable speed over any reasonable distance, at the moment?”

Theseus regarded him silently. Albus blushed, imagining that Theseus was remembering how _decrepit_ Albus had looked, shuffling across the room towards him. It had required effort simply to cover the thirty yards or so that had separated his room from Theseus'. Albus had to remind himself that _anyone_ would have had a difficult time walking with his injuries - it was not because he was 'too old.' He was not even out of his thirties. He needed to get over his insecurity about the age difference.

Theseus nodded. “No, you’re right, Albus. I’m sorry, I was making too many assumptions. Obviously, you have a choice to make. You can wait here. Or rather, return to _your_ room - it will be worse for you if you are found in mine. It is possible that they won’t arrest you if it is unknown that you spoke to me here, but you _will_ be questioned either way. Nothing you haven’t handled before, I imagine. And I don’t doubt you could escape on your own if that became necessary. Staying would give you more time for the potions to work.

"But I am not going to be at liberty to investigate anything if I stay here. _I_ am going to have to go, and I would prefer _knowing_ that you are not in custody. That is, selfishly speaking, I would feel much more at ease if you were to come with me. Which _is_ possible. There are spells that I’ve used in the field on myself or a friend to… basically turn off the pain and artificially increase strength and to create a protective barrier around any damaged areas, so that your body thinks that it is operating normally. It isn’t safe to do over long periods, but it is not particularly risky if used only long enough to get to safety. I’ve not suffered any permanent damage, and I’ve used this combination of spells perhaps as many as a dozen times. But it’s entirely your choice.”

Albus wished that Gellert was there with them. He would have known if the danger was real, or all in Theseus’ head. And Theseus was… Theseus loved him. Albus knew that he did. And Theseus didn’t like to see Albus hurt. But he wasn’t protective in the _same way_ that Gellert was. Which was usually a _good_ thing, but right now… Right now, Albus wanted Gellert's opinion on whether the risk of staying in the hospital was greater than the risk of running around London with several crushed bones and a couple of torn muscles rebuilding.

And his spleen had been damaged, as well, the Medi-witch had said? But surely that was healed by now. Albus palpated his abdomen gently, speculatively. Well, he wasn't in _pain_ there, at least. All the pain was in his back, his shoulder, his foot, his neck... And his head. He had a terrific headache that was making it difficult to think.

It didn't matter - Gellert wasn't here, and Albus had to decide for himself. Not that there was more than one choice - not really. Everything between him and Theseus was too new and too fragile… they’d barely been married five months, hadn't even been together as much as a year. (How had this all happened so quickly?) Now was not the time for saying ‘no.’

“Of course, I don’t want to stay here without you,” Albus answered. “Where you go, I go. Tell me what you need for me to do.”

So really, Albus had no one but himself to blame now for his current circumstances: trailing Theseus down a London street, wearing a suit transfigured from bedlinens and shoes transfigured out of sheets of newspaper. He smiled faintly at the thought of how adamant Theseus had been that he not risk damaging ‘those excellent pyjamas’ by transfiguring them into proper Muggle street clothing. Instead, they were stuffed into a magically enlarged pocket, because _why not_ simply toss on an undetectable extension charm to a newly constructed summer-weight wool jacket that was actually a low thread-count hospital bedsheet? ( _Yes_ , Albus was feeling a bit taken for granted.)

Albus followed Theseus onto a Muggle bus and watched as he wandlessly confunded the driver into letting them board without paying. Theseus began talking quietly to Albus the moment they sat down. “Soon, it will be noticed that we have gone. The fastest and frankly least conspicuous thing would be for you to look.”

Look at what?

Oh. Oh, no. Not Legilimency.

“You _hate_ that,” Albus protested.

“Yes, well, desperate times – you know.”

Still, Albus hesitated. It felt like a violation. There were very few hard lines that Theseus had drawn, but this had been one of them.

Theseus stood as the bus neared a stop and walked off the moment the door opened. Albus leapt up and followed him. Theseus kept walking into a blind alley and disappeared. Or – more or less disappeared. There was a tell-tale shimmer near the back wall, very faint. Albus disillusioned himself as well. He walked up to Theseus and pressed him into the wall.

Albus was aware that this was _not_ why Theseus had led him into such a secluded spot – his husband’s mind was obviously on other things. He was in ‘fierce and single-minded Auror’ mode, and there would be no distracting him. But it was a conditioned response at this point – Theseus walking into an alley and disillusioning himself had become one of the most reliably provocative behaviours that Albus could think of. He strained against his trousers in anticipation of them being opened by invisible hands, his cock being engulfed by an invisible mouth, his balls licked by an invisible tongue. Which was not something that Albus would have thought he would have liked – he was, in general, a highly visual person. But there was something deliciously wrong about knowing he was about ready to be stretched impossibly by a cock that he could not see, even with his eyes wide open.

Theseus allowed Albus to kiss him and grind up against him for a moment, but then he pushed him gently away and murmured in a (thankfully) amused tone, “You are the absolute _worst_. I only need you to keep your trousers fastened for another thirty minutes or so. Hands off, and stay unseen.”

Albus nodded before remembering to say “Of course, Lovely,” out loud.

Theseus suddenly appeared. He looked stern – in the way that he did when he was afraid and pretending not to be.

“I put up a notice-me-not on the back of the alley here, but I still want you to keep up your disillusionment. Please, Albus.”

“Theseus? Tell me that Gellert is going to be fine?”

Theseus snorted. “Right now, it’s _you_ I’m worried about. You and these injuries of yours. Not to mention that we have no idea who, if anyone, is after us. At least Gellert knows who he is dealing with. I don’t want to stay in one place for long. If you read me now, we can be on the same page in half a minute.”

“I – no, Theseus. I _want_ to say yes to you, but… I love you, and you know you don’t want me in your head. Your Occlumency shields are second to none, but there’s a reason we’ve never… Or not since… I don’t want to risk seeing something that you didn’t mean for me to. And you _know_ that I might. There must be another way.”

Theseus sighed. “You’re injured, Albus. And the other way – it takes more time.”

But if they started making exceptions to respecting Theseus’ boundaries, where would it end?

“That’s ok. I’m feeling pretty good at the moment.”

“Ok, well then, yes. But doing things ‘the other way’ – we’ll have to move around. A lot. And we can’t get separated –“

Albus froze. Theseus wanted to side-along him? Worse, rapid side-alongs, it sounded like, appearing and reappearing in a flash three, four, five times before stopping long enough to talk for a little while and then do it again.

“I may not be able to see you, but I can hear that you’ve stopped breathing, Albus.” Theseus reached out and laid a hand on Albus’ chest. “I’m _not_ going to make you side-along."

Albus felt his chest relax under the weight of Theseus' hand. Theseus stepped closer.

"I _know_ you, Love. I would never, _never_ ask that of you.” He felt his way up to Albus’ face and pulled him in for a gentle kiss. “I am going to need to trade wands with you, though.”

That was a new intimacy, but acceptable. Albus laid his wand in Theseus’ hand. Theseus did not immediately give Albus his wand, but instead touched Albus’ wand to his own and said, “Sequere.” He then held out his wand to Albus and it disappeared as it touched his hand.

“What was that?” Albus asked. “I don’t know that spell – Follow?”

“I – know how much you… _dislike_ being taken side-along…”

Albus _abhorred_ it.

Early in his apprenticeship, Theseus had taken Albus from Hogsmeade one afternoon in a light-hearted attempt to surprise Albus with a picnic supper. He had wrapped an arm around Albus’ shoulder and told him that he wanted to take him somewhere but wanted it to be a surprise – and Albus had agreed.

So, it wasn’t that Theseus had taken him side-along against his will. Nevertheless, the moment they had appeared on a hillside in the Lake District, Albus had started shouting, and once he was done shouting, he had collapsed into tears, until his sobs became gasping. He felt like he was dying, like he couldn’t get any air at all. His breaths sounded loud in his ears, his throat hurt, his chest hurt… Theseus had seemed very far away – everything seemed far away. Finally, somehow, Albus’ breathing had slowed, and his chest had started to feel less tight, and he felt _exhausted_. Theseus had hugged him and rubbed his back, which had somehow resulted in Albus pulling away and shouting again and apparating back to Hogsmeade without his innocent and confused apprentice.

Albus hadn’t even realized that this fear existed until he had exploded at Theseus. Alone in his quarters, he had pieced it together. After Gellert had left, Albus had had dreams in which Gellert had appeared in Godric’s Hollow only long enough to take Albus away with him. In his dreams, Gellert had taken him by side-along apparition, and while he had consented to go in most of these dreams, he had been relieved that any choice as to where they would go had been taken from him. He had embraced the freedom of making love in some bed he had never seen in a room he had never seen in an unknown town on the Continent. But the dreams would always turn dark – Gellert would make love to him and then abandon him, or not make love to him at all but apparate him directly into a prison and leave him there. Once, Albus dreamed that Gellert apparated him to a rock in the middle of the sea, where he tortured him before leaving him there alone, stripped of his magic.

The dreams had slowed, but not gone away altogether by the time Albus had come back to Hogwarts. But worse, they had already begun to change the way he thought during the day. Over time, Albus had become afraid that Gellert actually would come back for him – that he might take Albus from Britain against his will to some unknown destination (as if anyone could apparate over such a long distance – it had been irrational, honestly.) By the time Theseus had tried to take him on a picnic, it had grown into a fear of being out of control of his destination at _any_ time, with _anyone_.

Albus didn’t trust portkeys, either, and avoided them as much as possible. He had maybe taken a portkey three times in the past twenty years. He had not travelled by side-along apparition at all, on the other hand, since that day with Theseus. The idea still horrified him. Under ordinary circumstances, there were several much better options. More often than not, it was possible to apparate himself wherever he needed to go, but otherwise he could rely on carpets and thestrals and brooms and the floo network. And Muggle transportation over longer distances.

“It’s not all that uncommon, Love. I didn’t know until I was an Auror, but – people who have been in terrible situations, they don’t like not being in control. They particularly, many of them, don’t like not having control over their environment – where they are and where they are going.”

“Graves?” Albus asked.

“Among others,” Theseus conceded. “I _designed_ the spell for _you_ , though. Before I knew anyone else who would need it.”

“This is a spell for people who don’t like to side-along? Sequere… When you apparate, it takes me there?”

“No, that would be no different from a portkey that is tied to my magical signature. That’s not good enough. This – when I apparate, when I arrive, it sends an image of what I am seeing to my wand, so that when you concentrate on your destination, the wand transmits that image to you, so that you can _see_ where you are going _before_ you leave.”

He was not going to be blind. He was going to know where he was going. He was going to see his destination, and then _choose_ to go there. Albus was not quite sure why he felt like crying but…

“You – you made this spell for _me?_ ”

It used to be that when Albus remembered how much Theseus had loved him in that time before, when Albus wasn’t ready, Albus would feel guilty, or angry, or uncomfortable. But now – now he just felt reassured. All the time that they had been apart, Theseus’ feelings for him had never gone away. They’d been buried, pushed away – but they had still been there, like banked coals, ready for the merest breath to rekindle them.

“Yeah. I _had_ hoped we’d never have a need for it, though. But we do. Ready?”

“Ready,” Albus lied.

“Time to go.” Theseus turned on the spot and disappeared from sight.

Albus dropped the disillusionment. When he got wherever he was going, he wanted Theseus to see him. He wanted to see Theseus seeing him.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on Theseus – 'I want to follow Theseus,' he thought. And immediately, Albus could trees all around him, and a creek. Was this where Theseus was? His perspective started to shift downwards towards the forest floor and... Theseus' shoes. Albus laughed in surprise, his love for Theseus bubbling up in his chest - such a brilliant, considerate man. The image shifted back, as if Theseus had raised his head again - what a clever spell! Albus concentrated on the now _known_ destination and twisted into nothingness, reappearing next to Theseus.

Theseus reached out for Albus but then dropped his hand. “You ok?” he asked, cautiously.

Albus took Theseus’ face in both hands and kissed him. Was he _ok?_ Theseus had designed an entirely new mode of travel _for him!_ So that they could travel _together!_ And then he had known just how to reassure Albus when he had started to doubt. If Albus did not also know how to be considerate - if Albus did not know that Theseus needed to stay on the move - then he would be pushing Theseus up against a tree and showing him just how much more than _ok_ he was.

Albus forced himself to pull away and immediately started gushing, “That was _amazing! You_ are amazing. I never would have even _tried_ …”

Theseus looked pleased, but he quickly stifled his smile. “You can feed my ego later. We should do this at least three more times. Wait – first – let me make sure one more time that there’s no sort of tracker on us…”

Theseus moved Albus’ wand in a complicated pattern over himself, and then over Albus. This was the third time he had done it since leaving St. Mungo’s – and he had done it once before they had ventured out of his room – each time revealing nothing.

“Theseus – “

“In just a minute, Albus. I promise.” And he spun on the spot and winked out.

Albus sighed. He had seen other Aurors crack like this – their natural caution giving way to a near manic paranoia. There was no reasoning with them. Especially given that many of them rarely behaved this way unless there was something genuinely amiss.

Albus thought that this frenzied vigilance was triggered by not knowing the exact contours of the danger. Every Auror had at least one experience with being taken by surprise and someone being killed or grievously injured as a result. The cleverest and most responsible Aurors (and Albus could not imagine an Auror cleverer or more responsible than Theseus), when faced with too many unknowns and too much time to think about them, began anticipating attacks more far reaching, more hidden, and much more advanced than their opponents were likely capable of.

And Theseus had not only been an Auror. He had been a soldier. Albus didn’t know much about war, but he did know that it was impossible to go to war and not see a tremendous amount of death and gruesome injuries. Surely it fatigued the mind in some way?

This was not the right time to start crafting a treatise on the subject. Right now, Theseus needed his husband. Really, what he needed was _both_ of his husbands. But for now, Albus would have to do.

Four jumps later, they were on the roof of an old building that Albus could not place, but he thought that he recognized a bridge he could see from here, and a garden, and…

“Cambridge?” Albus asked.

“Consulted with a Muggle history professor here once.”

“For a case?”

“Not exactly. It was – we can talk about it another time. Right now… I know you weren’t listening before, so about going home… I always seal the floo when I leave, so that no one can get in aside from me or you or Gellert. But I cannot prevent the floo system from being monitored as it approaches our house – so we could be captured and rerouted before we get there. And I am sure they would be watching the house from the street, and –“

“And there are anti-apparition wards, yes. Which – I’ve never told you, but I think that you are absolutely right to have done that. And to have never put the house under a Fidelius. Too many people neglect other basic security measures when they have a Fidelius in place. It’s not really meant for primary residences, or for long term use. It’s for –“

“For bolt-holes – for lying low for a limited amount of time, until a specific danger has passed. Exactly. Which brings me to… until we have Gellert with us, and until we have a way to get more information, I think we need to… basically disappear. I don’t want to be some place where we can easily be found. It just so happens that I have a couple of locations already lined up…”

Albus was reconsidering his characterization of Theseus as ‘cautious.’ Apparently he was hyper-vigilant at all times, just… more covertly. Had he been like this before the War? Or had his time in America been enough to turn him into an ‘I have several escape routes’ sort of person?

‘I’m thinking we don’t want Newcastle,“ Theseus continued.

“You have a place in Newcastle? That’s brilliant! There’s no Wizarding presence, it’s urban… we could live Muggle…”

Theseus smirked. “I’m glad that you approve, Professor – it was carefully selected. But it only works if I know that our pictures are not being fed to the Muggle police. Which I do not know for certain. So, we need to disappear _entirely._ Unfortunately, I only have two ready-made escapes to choose from.”

 _Only_ two. Albus grieved the loss of his carefree apprentice – more for Theseus’ sake than for his own. What exactly had happened to him that had made him this way? Maybe one day, Theseus would tell him. But in the meantime, Albus could embrace this aspect of Theseus, too. Especially if it helped Theseus relax, and kept them safe.

“There’s a cliffside cave on the Welsh coast that is unreachable except by apparition – I have built it into a sort of apartment, and placed it under the Fidelius –“

Albus’ thoughts were turning from concern over Theseus’ state of mind towards concern for Gellert – how was he going to find them if they were under a Fidelius? How would _Albus_ have found Theseus if he were hiding under a Fidelius?

And finally, the thought which had been staring him in the face: _His husband had two safe houses, and Albus had not known about either of them before now._

“Who is your secret keeper?” Albus asked, trying not to sound accusatory.

“I’m the secret keeper.”

“You need someone else to cast it for you,” Albus pointed out. “A Fidelius takes two –“

“Actually, you don’t. That’s a common misconception. It is entirely possible –“

“So, it is not only that _I_ did not know that you have two places under Fidelius, but you are telling me that you didn’t tell _anyone?_ ”

“ _No_ , Albus, I didn’t tell _any_ one.”

Theseus sounded weary. But honestly, this was so typical, and Albus was tired and hurting, and not able to pretend anymore that he was unbothered.

“Not even _Gellert?_ ”

Theseus rubbed his face. He growled and raked his hands back through his hair, grimacing.

“ _Why_ did I not tell Gellert?!”

Albus did not want to be jealous. He really _tried_ not to be. But then Theseus would say things like this. He could make sense of not having told Albus, but was distressed not to have told Gellert?! Theseus said that he wanted Albus to think that they were all equally important partners, but he and Gellert were _more_ married than Albus was to either of them, and Theseus wasn’t even bothering to deny it at the moment.

“Well, you didn’t tell _me_. I’m not sure why you think you should have told _him_ if…”

“Yes, but, Albus… “ Theseus groaned in frustration. “They’re both _new_ , ok? I set the cave and Newcastle up, both of them, as soon as I moved back to Britain. _After_ Gellert and I were together, you understand? But _before_ I had even _seen you_ again – _at all_. I can’t help it that – you know what? Whatever. _Yes_ , I’ve been with Gellert longer than I’ve been with you. I can't _bend time_ for you and make that not the case. You’re not the same people, we don't have the same histories, our relationships are not going to be absolutely identical all the fucking time! So you're going to have to find a way to… just… It's not a competition, Dumbledore! What will it take for you to get it into your thick skull that _I love you endlessly!_ Merlin! You’re so fucking _infuriating!_ ”

Albus laughed incredulously at the somehow reassuring confession. “You too, Scamander.”

Theseus laughed shakily and drew Albus into an embrace. “I’m just – I’m worried about Gellert, and I know you are, too. And I know I’ve been saying I’m not, but I am. And now we have to figure out how to let him know where we are, which would have been obvious to him if I had just _told him_ about the cave in the first place.”

“Between the two of us, you know we’ll figure it out. We’ll find a way. The patronus. It’s an extension of you, right? Your voice, even. You can share the secret with him by patronus, I’m certain of it.”

“Yes. Patronus. You’re right. You’re right. Merlin, Albus.” Theseus pulled back just enough to search Albus’ face. “Please, Love. Just because I _understand_ not telling you… don’t think that I like it. I _hate_ that I neglected to share the secret with you sooner. I know I’ve hurt your feelings by not telling you.”

Theseus stepped away and started pacing.

“But after I’d set these places up, I just – I put them out of my mind. It’s safer that way, really. So, you – not telling you makes sense – I forgot about it, there hasn’t been time, whatever. But I – Gellert was in London at least once a week to see me _while I was outfitting them_ – and I never said _anything_ about it. He’s going to think I don’t trust him.”

“No, Love. No, he knows you trust him. I hope he knows. _I_ know. It couldn’t be more obvious.”

If there was one thing in his life that Albus was certain of, it was that Theseus trusted Gellert. More than Albus would likely ever be able to trust Gellert again himself, honestly. No, hopefully that was not true. He certainly loved Gellert, deeply. But at the moment, his trust in Gellert was based largely on his trust in Theseus’ good judgment – and in Gellert allowing Albus to look in his mind freely, constantly. Gellert knew how badly their trust had been broken, and –

What a staggering gift that had been - a gift Albus could never hope to deserve. Gellert had given up the privacy he loved so dearly because he had wanted for Albus to be comfortable enough to join him and Theseus… Albus decided that he would learn to trust Gellert without the legilimency. He realized now how much he wanted to.

“But I _arrested him_ , Albus! I pointed my wand at him in front of all of those people! I – I – I’ve done things I don’t understand at all, and I don’t like not understanding. It’s not everyone else – or, it’s not _just_ everyone else. I – I – fuck. You think he knows?” Theseus stopped and looked at Albus. “You _really_ think he knows?”

Albus needed Gellert so much right now. He wished he was here. Theseus was completely losing it, and Albus was… starting to lose energy. That had been a lot of apparition, and those spells Theseus had placed… the pain was starting to break through.

And only Gellert was going to be able to reassure Theseus on this matter, in the long run.

“I know he does. I –“ Albus’ voice broke. This day was _too much_. He needed a bed and he needed some tea, and he needed some _fucking_ pain medicine.

“Hey, no –“ Theseus reached out and touched Albus face. “Oh fuck. I’m sorry, Albus. It’s going to be ok. I’m sorry I’ve scared you –“

Albus looked down at his feet and swallowed. He was _not_ going to cry. Theseus was having just as bad a day as he was. Worse, arguably. He did not need to add to his –

Theseus drew Albus into his arms again. “I’ve got you. We’re going to make this right. We’ll get him back, and figure out what the Auror department is up to, and – “

Albus could not hold back his tears any longer. He had done nothing to earn love and reassurance of this kind. He had pushed both of these men away, and they had both come back to him. But now Gellert was gone again, and –

“Where’s Gellert, Theseus? You still haven’t – you only told me that Vinda –“

“Oh Albus, Love. I’m so sorry. You’re right. I – I don’t know much myself. I was knocked out by the blast, too. I woke up hours after you did. But I do know that he seems not to have been harmed by the blast. That he was awake and aware at the scene, and that he tried to stay – _would have_ stayed if Vinda had not stunned him and taken him away.”

Albus was relieved to hear this report – and a bit gratified to consider –

“He is going to kill her.”

Theseus stepped back but kept a hand on Albus’ shoulder. The injured shoulder. But Albus did not feel like telling him. The contact was nice, even if it hurt a little.

“It is a distinct possibility that that is literally true, yes,” Theseus agreed. “Let’s hope he avoids going so far, because he will not forgive himself. Incapacitating her, completely wiping her memory, and sending her to Tibet, however… _that_ I could get behind.”

Albus laughed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. There he was. There was his Theseus. He was still in there.

“And you, Thee? Are you okay, Lovely?”

“I think so. I feel about right for someone who spent a few hours knocked out by a spell-entanglement induced shockwave. I’m not injured to the point of requiring special magical support to move around, unlike yourself.”

“And what did the Healer say?“

“They never sent in a Healer to talk with me.”

So, Theseus did not actually _know_ whether he was injured or not. But Gellert would insist on looking him over when he reached them, anyway, so Albus could live with it for now.

“Come on then, Albus. We’ve been here too long. I’m going to apparate us once more. Then I’ll share the secret with you after the next jump, and after that, we can apparate directly there. It’s – I didn’t bother with an anti-apparition ward, since no one can apparate there unless I’ve shared the secret with them.”

That made perfect sense. Like everything else Theseus did. The man never did anything without a reason. Albus was sorry that Theseus was starting to question that.

“Just two more altogether?”

“Spells are starting to wear off, huh? Yeah, just two. You can make it?”

Did he have a choice?

“Sure,” Albus smiled. “Of course.”

Theseus gave him a quick kiss and spun away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some days, I am better at labelling than others. But no one, even on their best days, has any hope of labelling exhaustively - as with any fic, read at your own risk
> 
> – TW –  
> File under: Restraint
> 
> There is a memory of Gellert pinning Albus when he is bound which is not a traumatic memory for Albus (very much the opposite), but which might be a trigger for some readers. 
> 
> Given what _does_ trigger Albus, this might seem inconsistent to some people, but different folks trigger differently. It’s not all that atypical for one person’s list of ‘this is unacceptable, but that is ok’ to not look logically consistent to an outside observer.
> 
> – TW –  
> File under: Trauma reactions
> 
> Albus remembers having a panic attack - some of the sensations are described in detail.  
> The panic attack is linked to a dark recurring dream of Albus’ that will also be described. The dream entails, among other things, being imprisoned by Gellert.  
> The panic attack is also linked to not being in control of where he is going. (In this case, side-along apparition. But I have had friends who have had a similar fear of being a passenger in a car, for instance.)  
> Theseus links Albus’ fear of being out of control of his surroundings to behavior he has seen in other ‘people who have been in terrible situations.’
> 
> I will note that, in my opinion, the recurring dream is less about Gellert, at the root, than it is about Ariana’s assault and the subsequent imprisonment of Albus’ father and death in Azkaban, and Ariana’s later violent death. Gellert’s involvement in Ariana’s death and his subsequent flight from Godric’s Hollow (bringing his relationship with Albus to a precipitous end) causes Albus’ mind to make him into a symbol for all of Albus’ family trauma, including his early trauma / anxiety around his father’s arrest and imprisonment and ultimate death in Azkaban. (Gellert was not the first man to abandon Albus.) FWIW 
> 
> Albus is not the only one whose trauma makes an appearance in this chapter. There is a discussion of compulsive hypervigilance as a coping mechanism in Aurors / soldiers.  
> I’ll leave it up to the reader whether they see Theseus as having PTSD, or as only carrying one or two of the symptoms, or as having a number of symptoms, but to a subclinical extent.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt that inspired this fic was posted on The Wand, The Stone, and The Cloak – a Discord server for folks who ship Theseus Scamander with Albus Dumbledore and/or Gellert Grindelwald. You are welcome to [join us there!](https://discord.gg/HPnG8RDPvB)


End file.
